Oral History of the Dan Le Batard Show: Episode 5

Summary

Oral History of the Dan Le Batard Show: Episode 5

The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz takes listeners on a nostalgic journey through its evolution, highlighting pivotal moments, challenges, and the camaraderie that shaped the beloved sports and pop-culture talk show. In Episode 5 of the oral history series, hosts Dan Le Batard, Stugotz, Mike Ryan, and Chris Cody delve deep into the show's transition from a local Miami hotspot to a nationally recognized ESPN Radio program. Here's a comprehensive summary capturing all the key discussions, insights, and conclusions from the episode.

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1. Early Beginnings and Resistance to Change

Dan Le Batard reflects on his initial reluctance to shift roles within the media landscape:

Dan Le Batard [01:44]: "From very early in my career, I didn't want to be the University of Miami's beat writer. I wanted to be the University of Florida's beat writer... I realized that change and growth got in the way of the intimacy of the special thing."

This attachment to his initial roles led Dan to resist transitions that threatened the show's foundational dynamics.

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2. Transition to ESPN National Radio

The show's move to ESPN was a significant turning point, driven by the ambitions of Stugotz and Mike Ryan:

Stugotz [03:34]: "I thought that it was great that now we're going to expand our little local thing that we're doing nationwide on the worldwide leader in sports."

However, Dan approached this growth reluctantly, feeling pushed by his co-hosts and facing internal conflicts about the direction.

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3. Challenges with ESPN Management

Transitioning to ESPN brought unforeseen challenges, particularly regarding management’s understanding of the show:

Dan Le Batard [14:49]: "I realized, my God, this business has in leadership positions a bunch of people who just don't know what they're doing."

Dan recounts interactions with ESPN executives who were unfamiliar with the show's unique format, leading to friction and misunderstandings about creative control.

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4. Technical Hurdles and Studio Setup

Setting up a seamless broadcast across multiple locations posed technical difficulties:

Stugotz [05:20]: "So it's funny, if you're a national network, you put your best shows in the middays because you want the stations, the affiliates to air those best shows."

The team grappled with coordinating broadcasts from different studios, relying heavily on outdated ISDN lines and improvisational troubleshooting.

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5. The Billboard Incident and Suspension

A controversial stunt involving billboards in Akron, Ohio, testing the allegiance to LeBron James, led to Dan's suspension:

Dan Le Batard [34:08]: "We did talk about for weeks on the air buying a newspaper ad... when they suspended me, they said, you didn't give us any advance warning."

The incident highlighted ESPN's low-stakes approach to the radio show, resulting in unforeseen repercussions and Dan being pulled off-air without prior consultation.

Stugotz [49:19]: "We put up all these billboards and ESPN is in scramble mode because the top line didn't know about this."

This backlash underscored the disconnect between the show's grassroots creativity and ESPN's corporate governance.

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6. Introducing Allison Turner: Strengthening the Team

To navigate the complexities of a national platform, Allison Turner was brought on board:

Dan Le Batard [38:41]: "Allison was brought in as reinforcement to help some of the things where we were weak."

Allison's experience as a program director provided much-needed organization, guest booking expertise, and production finesse, elevating the show's quality and operational efficiency.

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7. Building the Clevelander Studio

The move to the Clevelander Hotel marked a new chapter, offering better facilities but bringing its own set of challenges:

Stugotz [56:09]: "We spent so many hours building out this studio from scratch... it felt big because you're watching big sporting events in Miami."

While the new studio provided superior equipment and a more vibrant environment, the cramped space and ongoing corporate interference sometimes stifled the show's original charm.

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8. Navigating Corporate Politics and Creative Freedom

Dan emphasizes the importance of maintaining creative control amidst corporate structures:

Dan Le Batard [25:50]: "I really didn't want anybody messing this thing up... The more people you invite into that tent, the more chefs you get in the kitchen."

He negotiated for minimal interference, striving to preserve the show's unique voice and camaraderie despite ESPN's overarching policies and profit-driven motives.

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9. Reflections on the Show's Evolution and Future

Looking back, the team acknowledges both the triumphs and tribulations that shaped their journey:

Stugotz [24:00]: "The show's actually getting stronger as we do this. The Heat really helped because it allowed us to be our ridiculous selves and play to an entire nation."

Despite setbacks like the suspension, the team celebrates their growth, strengthened bonds, and the enduring support from their loyal Miami audience.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Dan Le Batard [03:24]: "I just wanted more money. I mean, you talk about growth. I wanted to grow my bank account."

• Mike Ryan [04:30]: "This was the first time I heard the show was going national on ESPN Radio... I was disappointed in that aspect, but it was cool nonetheless."

• Stugotz [05:44]: "I was really eager for the national platform such that it was because we were still an afternoon show and we were going to go to a place that in radio, historically, Stu, you could give voice to this very little clearance."

• Dan Le Batard [25:50]: "In retrospect, if my main goal had been the opposite of that, if I'd been more like Stugotz, it might have netted different power results..."

• Mike Ryan [35:18]: "Why was that, Dan?"

• Stugotz [21:59]: "I remember being really confused. We're days away from our big ESPN debut, and I haven't spoken to who my boss might be."

• Dan Le Batard [34:08]: "We did talk about for weeks on the air buying a newspaper ad... when they suspended me, they said, you didn't give us any advance warning."

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Conclusion

Episode 5 of the Oral History of the Dan Le Batard Show provides an intimate glimpse into the show's transformative period. The hosts candidly discuss the balance between creative integrity and corporate demands, the technical and interpersonal challenges faced during expansion, and the unwavering spirit that kept the show thriving. Through teamwork, resilience, and a touch of Miami's unique flair, Dan, Stugotz, Mike, and Chris navigated the tumultuous waters of national broadcasting, ensuring that their voice remained authentic and beloved by fans both locally and nationwide.

Transcript

[Dan Le Batard]

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[Stugotz]

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[Stugotz]

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[Mike Ryan]

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[Stugotz]

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[Mike Ryan]

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[Stugotz]

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[Dan Le Batard]

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[Chris Cody]

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[Mike Ryan]

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[Dan Le Batard]

Full eligible tool list in store and online. Dan lebata except for, you know those days when I was in Coconut Grove at the tavern, I got my shirt pulled over my head and got kicked in the ear and stopped traffic and went home with a bloody ear Stoo cuts.

[Mike Ryan]

Los mas grande que son Lomas Duro Kain 20 mediocre years.

[Stugotz]

They're supposed to be NBA champion and NBA Finals MVP. You'll let down Nike, Braun. You'll let down your team. You'll let down the city. We're talking legacy.

[Mike Ryan]

Give me all you got. This is the oral history of that.

[Dan Le Batard]

Tan Levitard show with Stu Guards. In the nostalgia and revisiting of some of this stuff that I haven't thought about in a long time and haven't thought about at all, I have discovered some things that I did not know. One of them is a gentleman reticence to change at every turn. From very early in my career, I didn't want to be the University of Miami's beat writer. I wanted to be the University of Florida's beat writer. When I became the University of Miami's beat writer, I didn't want to become the Marlins beat writer. I didn't want to become a columnist. I got comfortable in the places that I was, and I realized that this special thing, having worked in a lot of different kinds of media environments, this special thing, I didn't want change and growth to be something that got in the way of the intimacy of the special thing. And so I became very attached to how we were doing things. And the combination of Hawk leaving and Stugotts and Mike wanting to push toward national pushed me into a discomfort that represents growth and the growth of our show. That I did reluctantly. And I did reluctantly, at least in part because Stugatz and Mike Ryan wanted something a little bit different than I wanted. And my agent, Trace Armstrong, was finally in cahoots with Skipper on trying to build something larger out of Miami. That combined with LeBron James and made ESPN feel sea to shining sea in a way that they hadn't been before because they were making so much of their content out of just Bristol and they wanted to go to New York, Los Angeles and Miami.

[Mike Ryan]

I just wanted more money. I mean, you talk about growth. I wanted to grow my bank account. And the only way to do that was by going to espn, going national.

[Stugotz]

I thought that it was great that now we're going to expand our little local thing that we're doing nationwide on the worldwide leader in sports.

[Dan Le Batard]

I thought that was going to be.

[Stugotz]

Great, especially for my career. You know, just a little radio producer going big time. Yeah, I thought that us getting a presence down here, especially with LeBron James and the Miami Heat's ascension into national relevance, I thought that, hey, our show is going to get the big time just based off of this LeBron bump. This is going to be great. Excellent.

[Chris Cody]

First time I heard the show was going national on ESPN Radio, I thought it was going to be rich. Honestly, I thought it was really cool. I'm like, wow, this is awesome. Like, I started here as an intern. We're going to be a national show. I'm going to make so much money. This media thing is going to pay off. I really shouldn't be second guessing this decision anymore. And then I realized what people made working for an AM radio show nationally or locally. And I was disappointed in that aspect, but it was cool nonetheless.

[Stugotz]

So for the initial venture, the joint venture between Lebaton show and espn, I didn't really have much influence there. I think you're possibly confusing the level of influence that I had. When we later decided to go to middays, I was more along for the ride here. I certainly wanted to go to espn. I certainly wanted to leave what was happening over at 790, the ticket where Lincoln Financial was about to sell to another company. And I wanted the stability of being a Disney employee. This, as I recall, it was more of a Trace LED thing and the instructions were kind of barked down to me. I was up for the challenge. I was really eager for the national platform such that it was because we were still an afternoon show and we were going to go to a place that in radio, historically, Stu, you could give voice to this very little clearance. Most local markets wanted to be live and local during drive time traffic.

[Mike Ryan]

So it's funny, if you're a national network, you put your best shows in the middays because you want the stations, the affiliates to air those best shows. And the place they're most likely going to do it is in the middays and locally. You wanted to be big at afternoon drive and morning drive. I was relaxed by this, by ESPN telling us, you're not on in too many markets. Just continue to do the show you've been doing for the last, you know, 12 years or so.

[Stugotz]

I recall it being low stakes. But before we get too far ahead of ourselves, let's talk about Heat title one to Heat title two. And in between that, I grew as a producer. The show sounded clean. We were doing very complicated things for local radio that the audience was probably none the wiser to. They don't know how difficult it is to coordinate with Sam Van Gundy. You go your question here. They don't know about ISDNs. That's how Roy, Billy, myself, we really earned Dan's trust as he tried to navigate who the third voice was going to be. Because I wasn't quite there yet, I started getting there a little bit more to the second Heat title where I found this cocky Heat fan character and Dan started to trust me a little bit more there. But Dan started having faith again in the show. When exactly after Hawk left? Because I know the specter of Hawk was always hanging over me. He was still on our station and he was so regarded as someone that had so much influence and sway over why exactly we were popular.

[Dan Le Batard]

I'm realizing in the revisiting of a lot of this stuff and surprised to realize in the revisiting of it that I thought I was handling the steering wheel. And in a lot of instances, I was a passenger sort of being pushed into places on my career, discomforts pushed into growth beyond where it is that my limits were. But I do remember very specifically in the uncertainty of footing that was Hawk leaving. We need to bolster our credibility here. In some places, I need to find new talent, diverse talent. Stan Van Gundy was very helpful in this regard. And I remember a whole lot of amateur shit happening around Stan Van Gundy, not just me paying him or just paying for his equipment so that he could do the show from Orlando. But the difficulties in trying to get his credibility around what it is that we're doing while not having him here in a room with us. That wasn't something we were doing a lot of. Bomani was the same thing. We're doing these shows on remote. I think I underestimated how difficult a chemistry link that would be, given that so much of what we do is music based on eye contact, where we're looking at each other. And the ISDN lines made that difficult.

[Stugotz]

So initially with Stan, it started with Mike. Coordinate with a station out in the central Florida area. Coordinate with Stan, what's close to his house, see if we can get an engineer there. Bomani, same thing. We had him at a radio station in North Carolina for those early days. Then we got Stan, like a really old isdn.

[Dan Le Batard]

It was mine. It was my old ISDN that they originally gave me for the Sunday morning show. I just sort of sent it to him. It looked like the computer in Matthew Broderick's War Games, like this giant 1981 computer.

[Mike Ryan]

I still have mine.

[Stugotz]

We sent it to his house. And we also didn't send an engineer to Stan's house. So many times I'm on the phone landline with Stan Van Gundy walking him through. The listener can probably piece together how difficult this was of a technical achievement. But over the course of this year, your trust in the team, Billy, Roy, myself, has probably grown just because the shows are starting to feel good. It's a lot more work than probably you're used to. But the show is changing. Having that third voice with credibility does give the show, whether you knew it or not, more national.

[Dan Le Batard]

And also Greg Cody. And Greg, the voices with credibility. And also Greg Cody.

[Mike Ryan]

He was the greatest of the third.

[Dan Le Batard]

Voices, though not the most credible of them.

[Stugotz]

He was always going to be along for the ride. Now your deal at ESPN starts cooking a little bit. Dan Lerd is highly questionable. Shortly thereafter, gets renamed to highly Questionable. Starts finding traction with an audience. That was hard at first, but you start getting your groove. You get taken away from the radio show briefly. It's just for like a handful of months where Stugotts and I cover that final hour. But most of the times it was like 30 minutes because we were leading into a broadcast. And that's also where I kind of felt my skill as a third voice get sharpened a little bit. Still wasn't very good, but I got my chemistry down with Stugotts a little bit. We created these bits, a critical Mind could consider these. These are a little bit lazier. Like we did open phone.

[Mike Ryan]

We did open phones. I think wake intake was somehow discovered during that open hour.

[Stugotz]

But also game notes later turned into weekend observations where we sees that during games you would just take notes. And then Dan was soon thereafter in on that bit.

[Mike Ryan]

Yes. Well, I mean, it's classic Dan, right? Because I was reading something off of my phone and Mike said, what are you doing? Why are you reading off your phone? And I said, I take notes while I'm watching games on notes app. And Mike said, we'll read all of them. And I did. And you laughed. And Dan was laughing. And then Dan, of course, wanted it more and he wanted it to be every single week. And now we've created a game around him. People are betting on my weekend observations. I am very thrilled about that.

[Stugotz]

We dressed it up. I remember that 6 o'clock hour that we did. Dan didn't really like it. We conceded that it was a very different show.

[Mike Ryan]

It was lazy.

[Stugotz]

It was a little bit lazy. It was also the strongest hour in the old, like radio books. I remember that. And that's when I really knew that ratings didn't make all that much sense. But then the convers with ESPN get to a point where now you're talking about a national show and you're going to be with a show from 4 to 7 with a local hour on the front end. We initially start doing that from Miami Gardens. Dan, as I recall, Trace Armstrong, your agent at the time, was kind of leading talks here. Was there any kind of delay with Hawk leaving? Was this always the plan? I think part of what sold you initially with ESPN Radio was it was low stakes, low clearance. You can kind of maintain doing your show, catering to a local audience. And keep in mind at this time, Heater going for their second straight title. LeBron is a very national topic.

[Mike Ryan]

This was a really tough decision for Dan. I remember he would call me and he would ask me and talk to me about the fact that we have this great little thing. We're buried down in Miami. No one really is paying attention outside of the audience. And sometimes it's cool just to have your own little thing in a small market. And he has said on radio, he has said a number of times that this market is the only market that matters to him. So speaking to people in Topeka, Kansas is not something that Dan wanted to do. It's something I wanted to do. But he was really torn on this because he loved what we created and he loves this city. And didn't really care about the rest of the cities.

[Dan Le Batard]

But what we were doing didn't quite feel little. It felt like destination stuff to me because we were expanding and people were finding us, we weren't going to seek them out with our show.

[Stugotz]

People would get used to us instead of us being used to being national. You know, I would think that the national audience would be more prone to a different approach of sports talk radio. You know, like, this is going to be a different show. This is not going to be Greeny. It's not going to be anything like this network has ever had. We are going to have hijinks. We are going to be funny.

[Dan Le Batard]

This is going to be more of.

[Stugotz]

A pop culture comedy sports show instead of just straight sports talk. And the nation had to get used to it for a while, and they grew into it.

[Chris Cody]

I think the weirdest thing about radio is that while it's even like a national show, and even when it was like on Fusion or ESPNU or whatever, when it later becomes like, simulcast, spoiler alert. If you're just joining the show and you. You don't know the direction that the show is going to go in. The weird thing is, is like, it could be on hundreds of networks and it can be listened to by like X number of people, whatever it is. But because it was like the same studio at the beginning before we moved to the Clevelander, you know that more people are watching and listening, but it feels exactly the same because it's like a small room and it really only feels like you're doing the show with, like, the seven people. You don't actually realize how many people are listening and how many people hear the things that you say. I thought about how many people were actually listening and how national the show was because it was the same studio. So it felt the same.

[Dan Le Batard]

I was super hesitant for a number of different reasons. And that hesitancy was not diluted at all in the initial conversations I had weeks before we were starting our show nationally. And I realized, yet again, my God, this business has in leadership positions a bunch of people who just don't know what they're doing. So I'm having a conversation with someone who's leading us, and he's asking me very basic questions that indicate to me he's never heard our show, that we're being foisted upon a group of people by whatever it is that Skipper and Trace have cooked up that is going to be unexpected to them because they don't know what it actually is. I actually remember A couple of conversations, really memorably. One of them was the first one with said executive where he's telling me how important the brand is. And I keep coming back to him with, I don't care about brand stuff. So we're just going back and forth there. And then he says to me the thing that makes it evident that he hasn't listened to the show, which is, how do we make a local show national? And I'm like, we've been doing that because the sports in Miami have stunk for a while. And then I asked him the question, have you ever heard the show? And the answer was no. And I'm like, how about we have this conversation after you've heard some of the show that you're about to put on in 9 days?

[Stugotz]

Days I kind of reverse engineered from my time over at espn. Well, after that, radio and audio deals over at ESPN were often just throw ins. And Dan already had the Cadillac, which was his main show. And he walks in the door as a full timer at ESPN with a wildly popular local radio show. So it was a natural experiment to put on in the afternoons. However, the executives there were totally different than what they were, at least for me, on the local level. The local level, yeah, you'd have occasionally a suit that was put in place by a major company, but they at least had bona fides. They had climbed up through the audio ranks. And I remember initially being very surprised that a lot of the people making the decisions over at ESPN Radio didn't actually come from radio backgrounds, nor did they really listen to their own product all that much. So I imagine you were probably in situations where you had to explain who your co host even was.

[Dan Le Batard]

Not only that, I remember delighting in a conversation because I had to leave at 6:00 because I had to get to Heat games to. The reason I was leaving early is because I had to be around this team for one of my other jobs. And I just remember being with the top down, getting on the highway as this same executive is calling me, because, I don't know, nine days into doing our show, he wants to have a conversation with me about someone from Utah who has written in objecting to the name Stugatz. And so the executive is saying again and again, are you aware that Stugatz is derivative of Cox and Balls? And I'm driving and my top's down and I'm like, I'm sorry, I can't hear you, I can't hear you. Well, what are you saying, Stugotts? Is derivative of cock and balls. And I made him do it a third time before I said. Before I said yes. So's cocky and ballsy. We're not changing the name Stugotts. I told Miami. We're not changing anything about the show. We're not changing my co host's name.

[Mike Ryan]

My real last name is Wiener.

[Stugotz]

I mean, would you prefer that? Let's walk it up to just about our debut on espn. This was kind of like, from my perspective, well decided. We start going down this path. I know for me, I was told that I was going to be a Disney employee. And literally the day before, I was told, no, that's not happening. So it was pretty evident that if the show was essentially not being paid attention to, the very bottom rung of the show was not at all even being paid attention to by Trace Armstrong, really. So our whole attitude in the production side was just keep this thing moving. Rising Tide lifts all boats. We all wanted to be Disney employees. We were all under the impress that we would be. And then when it got back to us that we wouldn't be. That stinks. How is this going to work? I'm producing a day part for you. You're my boss, but I don't actually have to listen to you. You're an ESPN manager. At the end of the day, you're not the person signing my checks. I'm not going to take advantage of that. But you sure this is an okay setup?

[Chris Cody]

When we first started, like, we didn't work for espn, or at least some of us didn't. So we still were like, employees of 790 the Ticket. It was really awkward because we. We had to listen to, like, the ESPN bosses technically, while they were not our actual bosses, our bosses were the people at the ticket. And then there were sometimes conflicts. It was a weird thing to kind of figure out because we didn't work for them, but we worked kind of for them. And there was different rules for everyone. It was probably weirder for the people at Lincoln Financial that didn't work for ESPN for a while. It was kind of like we were in this building, we worked for them, but we were also not really employees of them. And I think that there was probably, like, strange feelings, I would say, from, like, other shows and our show and other employees and our employees, just because we existed in, like, this weird realm where we just had different rules because we were listening to different bosses. And I would still obviously listen to, like, our bosses. But it was strange because we were kind of trying to not Achieve different things. But, like, we were trying to go by, like, ESPN and this and that, and then 790, the ticket would have other things. So it was a weird, like, limbo that we were in, actually, kind of. I think the awkward part about it, right, is that when people would, like, ask you, like, oh, you work for espn, And I'm like, no, not technically. Like, I don't really get any benefits. I don't get anything.

[Stugotz]

And that's how I knew ESPN radio was all kind of wonky.

[Mike Ryan]

Yeah, it was run by executives. It was run by non radio people. It was run by journalists, wasn't it? It was run by people who came up doing journalism and not radio. And they weren't paying attention to us. I love the fact that we were an afternoon drive at the beginning because. Because we were used to that and because we weren't clear to many markets. So they just said, hey, continue doing the show that you were doing. The thing that made that transition, I think, easy for me and Dan, I was thrilled. I was so happy to be at espn, whether I was a Disney employee or not. I never thought that I would wind up at espn. It was insane to me, the thought of that. And it felt really good to arrive there. But the two stories locally were national stories. That was Richie Incognito and Bully Gabe, and it was LeBron James to the Heat. And they were like, just do your show. And we're like, okay, this is in our wheelhouse, like richie incognito and LeBron to the heat. And I think that made that transition from local to national pretty seamless for me and Dan.

[Dan Le Batard]

One of the things, though, that I only realized sort of years into being at espn, it's not just that the executives weren't paying attention to what it is that was happening on radio. It's that it was pretty clear that radio wasn't a priority at ESPN. It was explained to me that this is largely $100 million property, and skipper wasn't allowing anyone into his office for a meeting who didn't guarantee him more than the $10 million a day that ESPN was making for Disney as its biggest property. So if you were somebody who could guarantee him $9 million, you were not somebody who was getting through that door. They were a television entity, and radio, as it was explained to me, was a fly around an elephant's tail. It was not something they thought was important.

[Mike Ryan]

It was like a throw in. It really was. It was an afterthought. It was a promotional vehicle for all their TV shows. In the play by play. But Dan is right. That's not where ESPN would make their money. It's not where they make their money. They make their money with play by play and television. That's what they're good at. That's what they're experts at. But that comforted me a little bit. I'm like, hey, we're here, and none of the executives are really paying attention to what it is we're doing. I couldn't believe I had arrived at the worldwide leader in sports. And I felt like nobody was paying attention to what it is we were doing or saying.

[Stugotz]

Well, pretty early on in our experience, we got a reminder that nobody would listen. We'll get to that in a second.

[Dan Le Batard]

And. And a reminder that you guys weren't Disney employees. Because once I got susp, I realize they just ran you guys off the road because they couldn't have people on the air with the liability issues who weren't Disney employees.

[Stugotz]

Well, Stugotts keep saying that's a destination. We're doing national radio, syndicated on ESPN Radio. That feels like we've arrived. Didn't really feel like we arrived anywhere in terms of a transition. I remember being really confused as who do I speak to? How do I do this? With your clocks. This is really complicated. We were still in our same studio. They sent down a ninja by the name of Juan that got everything technically up to snuff.

[Dan Le Batard]

There's always a Juan in Miami who's going to help you figure these things out.

[Mike Ryan]

He's always a ninja.

[Dan Le Batard]

He might use a toilet and part of an airplane wing that was found in a crash.

[Mike Ryan]

And now you're making a MacGyver.

[Dan Le Batard]

But he's. Well, the Cuban. The Cuban resourcefulness and the Juans that we have down here helped make us number Juan.

[Mike Ryan]

Give it to him.

[Stugotz]

I remember being really confused. We're days away from our big ESPN debut, and I haven't spoken to who my boss might be. And aren't I supposed to be a Disney employee? How is this supposed to go? I was given a hard copy of clocks from somebody. I memorized them. I think maybe I had one dry run, soft dry run with what the clocks would be. We started maybe trying to manipulate our own clocks on one of those other hours to see if we can get the timing down, because that was always gonna be an issue for us, hitting a hard network time when we were just bastards with the clock.

[Mike Ryan]

We were sloppy.

[Stugotz]

We were so bad with the clock. So that was my main concern.

[Dan Le Batard]

I have no radio training. I Don't. I don't have any, like, what clocks? What are you talking about? I just talk until I'm done talking.

[Mike Ryan]

No, because when we were doing the show locally and Dan would just keep going, I knew he was blowing past the break and I would just tell signal to him, keep going, keep going. It's local. No one cares. Just keep going, keep going. We'll put this 12 minute stop set in when you're done.

[Stugotz]

Yeah. And when the beepers came along, just give us five minutes. It has to have five minutes. I look back thankful that it was so messy at the start, because if we were just walking through the door with what surrounded, say, the midday show when we took over, and so many more suits are paying attention and there's so many more rigidities, this allowed us to say in our little ecosystem in Miami Gardens, where Dan was most comfortable, he started doing the show with a local hour from 3 to. So he was already talking to an audience he was comfortable with. And it just felt like a natural extension. And I remember really quickly, this feels all right. This is not bad at all.

[Mike Ryan]

Well, it felt the same. Right.

[Stugotz]

The show's actually getting stronger as we do this. The Heat really helped because it allowed us to be our ridiculous selves and play to an entire nation. If we didn't have that, it might have been more of a struggle. But I think back now really thankful that it was so wild west, it was so ragtag and we had such little corporate intervention. You were nervous the first day. How could you not be? And it was a little rigid, more rigid than it usually was, but it allowed you to quickly get your feet under you and continue going with the main thing, which is, let me just do a really entertaining show. Let me cultivate these voices. Now with the NBA Sam Van Gundy. This is really cool. And the show just continued to grow. We didn't miss a beat with our local audience. They were rooting for us. They were happy to have an ally speaking on behalf of the Heat when you were on espn, where it kind of felt largely like ESPN was against the Miami.

[Dan Le Batard]

The thing, though, that I was clutching to with my death grip, more than anything, more than even a reticence to be forced to change once I've arrived at something comfortable, is I really didn't want anybody fucking this thing up, because I knew how rare it was to be able to sit around and enjoy something laughing together, shared with people. And the more people you invite into that tent, the more chefs you get in the kitchen. And so I negotiated a Lack of interference, it was. The thing that was most important to me is do not start contaminating or bothering us on what we do. And in retrospect, if my main goal had been the opposite of that, if I'd been more like Stugatz, it might have netted different power results because I really did just want to be left alone. I didn't want to team with ESPN on making us bigger. I just wanted them to air us and leave us alone.

[Mike Ryan]

I wanted to team with ESPN and have them make us bigger. So that's interesting that you're thinking about that now.

[Dan Le Batard]

I mean, it's obvious now when you see what we ran into so that McAfee could fly with a rented spaceship. That is kind of complicated to get into the air. But it's just also funny to hear within these conversations that all of you guys wanted to be Disney employees when I really didn't want to be a Disney employee.

[Mike Ryan]

Good benefits.

[Stugotz]

It was great benefits and also tickets to the park. I mean, we were not on stable ground in Miami. It was not the most comforting conversations to be having discussions every quarter with people over at ESPN and you have a disagreement. There's no playbook for how to go about this when you're not actually my boss. That's cool for Dan to believe that he doesn't actually have bosses, and that may actually be fact, but I'm still a mid-20s person producing daytime programming for ESPN, having fundamental disagreements over stuff with my managers, and they don't actually have recourse. We didn't really test that all that much. And I look back on it, and it kind of felt like we were doing ESPN programming out of the waxy studios for a brief moment in time, we were. It was a year. Yes, it was a full year. Because we go to the very next offseason and LeBron leaves, and that's the first time we really test the management dynamic of not being ESPN guys. You and I and Dan having to be the face of essentially all the punishment that falls upon the show.

[Mike Ryan]

No, Mike was really concerned about it and had every right to be that he was not a Disney employee, because to us, ESPN and Disney felt like a destination. Like, it felt like the most secure thing in the world. And at that time, it was not so secure down here.

[Stugotz]

It also makes me look like an asshole to my team because while I was barely getting any communication, the message that Billy and Roy are getting from me is they should be talking to us any day now about your ESPN packages. They have families. And then the day before I look like a total asshole saying no, actually we're still here with Lincoln Financial. Who knows what happens with the sale. I'm a little confused Used.

[Dan Le Batard]

It's a top down deal and the layers between Skipper and whoever's second, there's a whole lot of earth there in terms of guy who makes billion dollar deals and person who just keeps the trains running on time, who's an ESPN vice president. Like the difference between one and two at ESPN is the difference between number two and number 10,000.

[Mike Ryan]

Right.

[Dan Le Batard]

ESPN.

[Mike Ryan]

It's like the difference between Jordan and LeBron. LeBron. I mean is that fair?

[Stugotz]

I think you're complicating it more.

[Dan Le Batard]

It's not at all.

[Mike Ryan]

Feels like it is. Jordan's at the top.

[Dan Le Batard]

That's not. It's kind of. You did it. The opposite of what I was actually saying just so that Skipper at the very top. So when this goes top down and you have it trickle down and forced upon people. I'm sure this is a story we will cover later on in the show. But what ends up happening is I learned later on that all of these vice presidents were saying to anyone who would listen, there will never be a studio at the Clevelander Hotel in Miami. And then the next day all of. I'm not even kidding. The next day they're all like, okay, we're doing a studio at the Clevelander in Miami. Because what was done here is you flexed. No, it wasn't me.

[Stugotz]

It was.

[Dan Le Batard]

It's not me. It's that Skipper and Trace had a relationship. Stugatz. I am a passenger on this. I'm a passenger on highly questionable where Eric Ride Home is dictating the terms on what it is that show is going to be. And I'm a passenger with Trace Armstrong and John Skipper on what it is that ESPN needs to fill in terms of Latin quota and what it is that it's going to take to get our crew over there when I don't totally want to be over there. You got to make it better for me than it already was. And I'm just learning now. Honest to God, I did not know this when it was happening. The comfort that I had because I was a Miami Herald employee, like that's where my full time benefits were. And so I wasn't answering to Disney, I wasn't answering to radio. The thing I received respected most was newspapers. So I didn't really have a grasp of just how uncomfortable you guys were.

[Mike Ryan]

I know that it was a tough decision for you to leave and I think the first few days to maybe the first few weeks, you were a bit nervous. Like, I remember first day, I was terrified. Yeah. You sent me a text saying, thank you for being the least terrified of all of us on the show because I was irrationally cocky at that point in my career. But I am wondering, Dan, because Mike is right. The audience locally in Miami, they were rooting for us. We were this rag tag bunch of guys. It didn't make sense what we were doing. And it felt like their show and they were in on this show and contributed to the show. Did that make you feel better, the fact that they really were rooting for us?

[Dan Le Batard]

It made me feel slightly better. But I was pretty concerned the entire time that the kind of change that was coming was not the kind of change that they would like. Because I realized in the very early fights about can Ron McGill stay on and stuff that they were going to try and change a show when they promised me they weren't gonna change the show. But the person who had promised me the show wasn't going to change wasn't the one managing the show. So there was just very early on a lot of interference that made me feel like I was fighting against somebody at the start.

[Stugotz]

I do want to ask you about Ron McGill. I was also surprised by the support that we got from Miami. It was an unexpected buy product because also in all of this, the RSS fee that people listen to today, it was owned by Lincoln Financial and it could have been a complicated negotiation, but it gets absorbed by espn. This is the early days of messaging. Poppy podcast. It's still going to show up. Trust us, it's going to be there. And even though it changed ownership hands, we didn't miss a beat. And the show did grow some, but we weren't really clear to major markets. This is when podcasts as an industry start really eating into terrestrial radio. So we see our base grow. I know early conversations before I was even an ESPN employee, they were flabbergasted by our digital numbers. Now that they had it, I was super pumped because they had much better data than I had over at Lincoln Financial. Lincoln Financial didn't have somebody staffed against it. It was impossible to get people to get to my emails in a timely fashion here. There was something on the books that I can calendar every month to really inspect how we're doing there. And I remember hearing someone be really astonished. They had big properties there, but they had never fully embraced digital, and we were absolutely crushing it in their eyes now. It was super impressive. To Pete, who was overseeing digital, it didn't really mean anything to anybody over there because radio audio didn't mean anything to anyone over there. I do want to ask you about the Ron McGill thing because I remember that being a battle that you had to have. What can you tell us about that?

[Dan Le Batard]

There is nothing at ESPN I had to fight about more often than whether we could do the animal segment. I would say by a multiple of 10.

[Mike Ryan]

Really?

[Dan Le Batard]

It always kept coming up till the very end. Would you please get rid of the animal segment? And my response, I mean, I just remember where I've been in a strip mall in Aventura with Stugotts. The first time I'm hearing that was unfortunate.

[Mike Ryan]

It was a Morton Steakhouse. The executives thought we were meeting at the one in South Beach. We were not. That was too far from my house. We met at the one in a strip mall and Aventura.

[Dan Le Batard]

Dugatz had a high level meeting at the shittiest steakhouse at a strip mall because he picked the location. That's the first time I remember thinking, is any of this going to work? Because they promised me they weren't going to change the show. And they're coming in and they want to change Dugatz's name and they want to get, you know, our most popular guest off of the show. And so they were fights that I just kept reminding them, even though there was nothing, and writing, hey, you guys told me you're not going to change the show.

[Stugotz]

And you ultimately had the backing at the very top level. So these were little battles, but you won every single one of them. And I imagine there was a subtext of Skipper there the entire time. Somewhere around the summer that LeBron left, plans are already in place for us to move into the Clevelander. And you had actually gone pretty much a year, scandal free. But then LeBron decides to take his talents back to Cleveland and we, we talk openly on our ESPN radio show about a stunt. And this is the first time we ever really get in real trouble with espn. Why was that, Dan?

[Dan Le Batard]

We did talk about for weeks on the air buying a newspaper ad, finding out how much it cost, and then getting upset because the newspaper in Cleveland wouldn't do that to LeBron where we would put up an advertisement, full page, you're welcome. LeBron signed Miami. And so when the newspaper wouldn't and we were talking about all of this, this is how we ended up getting Liam a babysitter, because nobody was listening to this stuff. And when they suspended me, they said, you didn't give us any advance warning. And all of our listeners knew about this. We then end up putting, for the same price, that or less than it would have cost to put a newspaper ad in. I think it was 11 billboards in Akron, Ohio. And when they learned about it, a brush fire in Bristol broke out. And I was getting all sorts of panicked calls about, you have to take all of that stuff down immediately, faster than immediately. And I'm like, but what about the plane? I'm going to fly over his rally that's got a banner behind it. It's going up later tonight.

[Mike Ryan]

Was it, Mike going there live?

[Stugotz]

Yeah, I was going to dress like John Cusack and say anything. And that's when I had my first ever conversation with ESPN Global Security.

[Mike Ryan]

Right.

[Stugotz]

Telling me straight up, I couldn't do that.

[Chris Cody]

It feels like it came together really fast. And it did somewhat come together fast, but it also was moving really slow at the time, like, if that makes sense. There were, like, grand plans for that whole thing. And some of the things ended up getting canceled because of the suspension or whatever it was that happened, like, as a result of it. So, like, we would talk about it every day and say, we're going to do this, we're going to do that, and, like, do it on air. But no one, I guess, was really taking it seriously until it actually happened. And I assume that someone from the MBA or someone stepped in and reached out to ESPN once it actually happened and said, hey, like, we're partners here. You can't be having having your talent go and put up billboards. But I remember a back and forth and seeing multiple mockups of what it is that the billboards were supposed to look like. While it's going on, you're figuring out, like, all of the dumb legalities that go into some of these things. So one of the versions of the billboard had the pictures of the actual rings on it, the actual, like, Heat championship rings. And then they came back and they said that we couldn't use the actual images of the rings because it was like, there's a copyright issue where, like, the design on the ring was owned by the ring designer, Minor. So then they had to go back and then mock up, like, cartoon versions of the rings and, like, recreations. Like, that's why it looked the way that it looked. And then there was like a big debate with everyone here of what it should look like, like, what font should be used. And Comic Sans ended up being the one that won. And it was because of the Dan Gilbert letter. But, like, that was a back and forth is do we use this font? Do we use that font? This looks better. That looks better. What should it say at the bottom? Should it say the Dan LeBatard Show? Should it say Love, Poppy and Stugotts? Like what should it say? And that was only like the first phase because after that there was supposed to be, I don't remember was skywriting or a banner. That was supposed to happen like the day of the actual I'm coming home party. And then once the suspension happened then like all of the rest of the plans ended up getting canceled. There was a lot more that was supposed to happen, but it, it, it happened like very quickly, but also felt like it was taking forever cuz it felt like we were doing something bad, which then they ended up telling us you did something bad, don't do that anymore. I got to be honest with you, the entire time I've been on the show and at ESPN in particular, the Billboard's one example, but it was basically a never ending feeling of is this the thing that's going to get us fired? And I know it sounds crazy, but it was like a very stressful environment at ESPN where you honestly. Or I honestly because like I'm you know, an anxious person. But it was constantly like, is this going to be the thing that ends the show? Is this going to be the thing that Dan gets fired over? Is this going to be the thing that now I to explain to everyone why I don't have a job? And like it was never because of something I was doing. It was always like, I'm just kind of like an appendage here. But is this going to be the final straw that breaks the camel's back, that gets us all fired?

[Stugotz]

In talking this out, we have to mention that Allison Turner joined our team somewhere in this in between and she was really influential in helping you out with those bigger in scope types of activations. Allison was the first ever management person I spoke to. She essentially gave me my internship at 790. She had gone to QAM and bound back and forth. I don't know if she was still working in media by the time that Dan reached back out to her. Why did you bring Allison Turner back into the fold?

[Dan Le Batard]

Excellent radio ear. She was our program director.

[Mike Ryan]

She was the PD at 790 for a good year. But she was a radio lifer. And quite frankly, I mean, we're a bunch of cavemen. We needed Allison around to kind of help us out, but she really did help Dan from this standpoint. She got the show organized. We needed it to be organized. She was a big help to you.

[Stugotz]

From guest booking, no doubt.

[Mike Ryan]

She was one of the best guest bookers that I have ever come across. And that's where I feel like she really elevated our show from that standpoint. A production standpoint, an organization standpoint, a maturity standpoint. But the guests were better.

[Chris Cody]

I love Allison. My earliest memories of Allison Turner joining the team was her being brought on to book guests a little bit after Mike took over and we had multiple studios and she would not sit in our studio. She would go and sit in a production studio at the Waxy Building. It would be like a studio like down the hall and she'd just be kind of booking guests the entire time. And I didn't have like a great relationship with her at the beginning. Not that I had a bad relationship with her, but it was just like she was booking guests. I was, you know, editing. So we didn't really work that closely together at the beginning. When we were at the Waxy studio, my relationship with Allison really like blossomed and became solidified once we moved to.

[Stugotz]

The Clevelander was Alison joining us. More born out of Hawk leaving initially or were ESPN now. We need to punch up this guest list.

[Dan Le Batard]

I just needed all purpose help because it's soon thereafter and I hope I'm not making a mistake here in how I remember this, but it soon thereafter ended up with her also being my assistant where there's just a lot of stuff that I needed help with because things had become unwieldy, unruly. Having three jobs was a little bit too much and the show needed help in a variety of different places because among other things, when we're making this transition, I mean, you guys are kind of still kids. I'm putting that in quotes. You guys are really young people in this industry. And so we needed somebody who had veteran radio chops other than Stugotts, because I didn't have them. I didn't know how any of this stuff was supposed to run. I didn't have any experience. The only radio show I had done was a Sunday morning show that I did from the office of my house that never had any interaction with anybody on Sunday morning because I did not have any idea how radio was supposed to work. And she did. Her and Stugotts did.

[Mike Ryan]

She had tons of experience and pointed out earlier she was the program director at 790 to ticket. I ended up firing her because I read an email I wasn't supposed to read. It was not Supposed to land in my inbox. It was unfortunate. Dan told me not to. I regret it till this day. I really do have apologized to her several times. But I was so glad that she came back into the fold, because for me, it felt like, okay, I'm correcting something that I did wrong years ago by bringing Allison back into the show. Because I knew even while firing her, how great she was at her job and how valuable she could be to any radio station and any radio show, and especially Dan. And she was valuable.

[Dan Le Batard]

This was another one, though, Mike. And I'm taking some tabulations of this as well as we go through the rummaging of our past. I was paying her myself. Like, I don't know who else was paying her. Like, there might have been some money she was getting elsewhere, but it wasn't enough for her to make the kind of living she needed to because this is such a shitty business.

[Stugotz]

In the early going, she wasn't on the books for Lincoln Financial because she's not in the department meetings. She certainly wasn't on the payroll for es, espn, because that took a long time for everybody to get on the payroll at espn. Yeah, you were paying her out of your own pocket. We were very fresh faced back then. We were all in our 20s. Your production team, Chris Cody's starting to enter the fray as a Nepo baby intern. And we have Chris, we have Billy, we have Roy. We have myself. All mid to early 20s at this time.

[Dan Le Batard]

Not married, not kids.

[Mike Ryan]

But I also remember us really kind of growing closer as a family. Because you're removing Hawk, you're bringing in young, young guys. We all had to figure this out together. We're at espn. Allison comes in, she helps us. I feel like it was probably one of the best times for our show in terms of off air chemistry, where we were really close. We were working on things together. Booking was done by me, you, and Allison. It felt like teaching moments, at least for me. I don't know about Dan, but for me and Allison, these felt like teaching moments. And it was cool to see you guys grow.

[Dan Le Batard]

It's interesting to hear you say that. When I think of sort of the most joyful, creative time, it's early, late at night with Hawk working on some of the stuff early that was changing what our show would be at the beginning. But it makes sense from the vantage point that you're talking about. Once you guys are now in charge, you guys seize on the creative hunger of, oh, here's our opportunity. And so you're doing the same Thing in the second evolution of the show that me and Hawk were doing in the first evolution of the show.

[Stugotz]

We'll close the billboard loop in a minute. But it's important because all this stuff is happening at the similar timeline under. Initially, it's only human for me to be very threatened by the person that gave me my initial internship. It's a weird dynamic. All of a sudden, she comes into the team, and you made it clear she's here to help you. She's here to help you. I had conversations with her. It felt very clear she was there to help.

[Dan Le Batard]

Oh, and now that you bring it up, though, Mike. Yes. No, she was hired because we needed some help with how we were being produced. Now that you mention it, you're bringing back to mind. No, Allison was brought in as reinforcement to help some of the things where we were weak.

[Mike Ryan]

Utility player Jose Aquendo. That's what she was. You were threatened by that.

[Stugotz]

It's only human to be like, okay, they're bringing in an adult, a person that has been in this industry for a long time. It complicates the dynamic a little bit more. If your very first memory of that industry is this person gave you your internship, and now all of a sudden, several years later, they're essentially reporting to you. I had never encountered that kind of power dynamic. I say power dynamic loosely because at this point, Dane is very much in firm control of all the decisions. Decisions when it comes to this.

[Mike Ryan]

Well, that's why I'm surprised that you were that threatened, because you knew dad at that point. You knew how loyal he was.

[Stugotz]

I was still very much improvement mode. And the second that I felt like I had my feet under me on the local level, national came around. And this just starts a series of events of anytime I got comfortable, something in the dynamic would change. Where no one had experience with. To be fair, Hawk didn't have experience producing a national radio show either. He would have had a lot to learn at that point. But at least he was the adult. He was a bald man with a family at that point. Like, there is a certain je ne sais quoi about having a bald man at the helm. And then looking at me with a snapback and heat merch on it counts for something.

[Mike Ryan]

Bald was a very important detail. I'm glad you threw it in there. He's been bald since he was, like, 20.

[Stugotz]

He was a grown ass man.

[Dan Le Batard]

Since he still smelled of embryonic fluid. He came out of the womb with a cul de act for hair. But what Mike is Bringing up there just brings back the memory. I didn't realize until you just said it now. No, it's your being threatened that remind me. And you reminding me of you being threatened. Oh, that's right. That's how that happened. Allison was hired because I just needed to get some young people who would be threatened some help. Like, I just needed to get them some reinforcements behind them so that they could feel a little bit stronger.

[Mike Ryan]

Yeah. So your intentions were good, but you hired someone who was a threat to all of them.

[Stugotz]

But I will say you were right when you said in terms of chemistry. Yeah, everybody getting along off air.

[Mike Ryan]

Yes.

[Stugotz]

I got over my own insecurities, which were not totally unfounded. I had reason to be insecure. I did not master that job. Allison coming in absolutely boosted deficiencies that I had. So not just do I feel insecure because this person gave me my internship several years ago. Now, does Dan not trust me? But also, also I'm very keenly aware of where my weak spots are. So that is going to play into the.

[Dan Le Batard]

Your job was never in jeopardy, though. It's so weird to me. Your job at no point was in jeopardy. Like, I know this better than you. These are your insecurities speaking. There was no point that you were going to lose that job. We were going to figure it out.

[Stugotz]

It was at this point, after a year of having clean shows with espn, after coming out of the Hawk stuff, that I did feel insecure in that as long as Dan wants to stay in this version of the media game and I don't mess it up, I got a job here. But the insecurity came from my own personal insecurities. The fact that at that time she was a different type of producer, but she was a much better producer than I was. Their natural insecurity. I can't turn to Dan. How do I deal with this dynamic over at espn? Because the job was still protect Dan from espn. And it pops up during this billboard.

[Mike Ryan]

But as you're saying this, do you realize that's why he brought.

[Stugotz]

I know why he brought Allison in. And I can see that Allison absolutely helped us where she needed to help us. I will also concede that maybe not initially there because I knew I had a lot of ground to make up. And she was so good, especially early on. And Dan was really good. You were really good. We're all a team. We're here to help you. I think everybody was aware that I was put in a weird position. We're all 20 year old shitheads. And here comes this seasoned radio vet that gave you your break, I think you all kind of knew that that would be a little awkward for me. But y'all did a great job with it. She was wonderful. And like I said, our chemistry was really good at this time and we were doing good. I was feeling more confident in my on air character. We had fewer co hosts. The show was starting to hum, and the ESPN stuff was starting to pick up traction. We had fans over at espn. We kept getting people from ESPN telling us that, hey, they're playing you in the halls because that's one of the places that you are cleared inside in the hallways. Yes, Internal.

[Mike Ryan]

Office.

[Stugotz]

Office. And we really stuck out with their entire daily lineup over there. But we get into this hot water with the LeBron billboards that Allison helps with in securing planes and never go up into the air. I never actually make it to akron.

[Mike Ryan]

Now at 11, it's a sign of the times. This billboard poking fun at LeBron James went viral yesterday. Well, tonight, the man, the Miami radio host behind the billboard, has been both silenced and suspended. Good evening. I'm Danita Harris. Chris is in Chicago tonight getting ready for tomorrow's vote to bring the 2016 Republican National Convention to Cleveland. We're going to check in with him in just a few moments, but first message delivered. You're welcome, LeBron. We showed you the controversial billboard in Akron last night. Now, the ESPN radio host who paid for it is now paying the price. News Channel 5's Michael Baldwin live in LeBron hometown, where Dan LeBatard's silence definitely has people talking. Yeah, Danita, we won't be hearing from ESPN host Dan Lebatar anytime soon. That's because he's been suspended for two days. He's been suspended for putting up signs.

[Stugotz]

Like these throughout the city of Akron.

[Mike Ryan]

And notice, Danita, I said these. That's because there's more than one. Not one, not two, not three, not four, not five, but six.

[Dan Le Batard]

That's right, six of these.

[Mike Ryan]

Your welcome, LeBron. Love Miami billboards spread across Akron. They cost about 100 grand and they were put up by ESPN TV and radio host Dan Lebertard, who lives in Miami. Well, the four Letter network suspended him.

[Dan Le Batard]

For two days because they say they.

[Stugotz]

Had no idea what he was up to.

[Mike Ryan]

They released a statement saying in part, his recent stunt does not reflect ESPN standards brand. We were not made aware of his plans in advance. Levitar sent a text to a reporter in response to the suspension, which reads, I guess ESPN didn't find it at.

[Dan Le Batard]

All quite as Funny as I did.

[Mike Ryan]

Nope. And neither did people from akron like the LeBron James grandmother's fan club.

[Dan Le Batard]

I did not like the billboard. No, don't mess with my child. Don't mess with our child.

[Mike Ryan]

A Miami Herald reporter spoke to Lebertard and says we may be out of bounds on the sign's message. Dan did it all in jest. You know, to him, it was all good natured fun.

[Dan Le Batard]

You know, it was never meant as any sort of harsh criticism of LeBron.

[Mike Ryan]

No matter what the billboard's message is. People in Akron think ESPN did the right thing by having Lert sit on.

[Dan Le Batard]

The bench a few days. Well, I think he did it underhanded then. You know, if they didn't know about it, they did the right thing by suspending him.

[Mike Ryan]

You know, of those six billboards that we found, we found one near Springfield.

[Dan Le Batard]

Township and another one that near Coventry.

[Mike Ryan]

Was just over the Akron line.

[Dan Le Batard]

Now, again, Dan Lebertar's producer is supposed.

[Mike Ryan]

To be coming to the rally tomorrow. He says he has another few surprises for us.

[Dan Le Batard]

We'll have to see what those are.

[Mike Ryan]

All right, we're live in Akron. I'm Michael Baldwin, News Channel 5.

[Stugotz]

Oh, wonder what they could be.

[Mike Ryan]

Okay, thank you very much, Michael.

[Stugotz]

We put up all these billboards and ESPN is in scramble mode because the top line didn't know about this. And when they asked their middle management what happened here, they didn't listen either. So they're all trying to play catch up because now ESPN is reacting to a reaction which was pretty toxic. And, Dan, you were the only ESPN employee at the time. We were off in no man's land waiting to hear from you. How many phone calls did you get and what were they like? During this point, there was a lot.

[Dan Le Batard]

Of panic from everybody. I remember where I was. I was driving around in circles around Joe's Stone Crab because I was headed into the show, and they're like, you're not on the show. You're suspended. And they yanked you two off of the air as well and didn't ask any opinions about it. It was just a unilateral decision. I thought you guys were gonna do the show in my. My absence, but the whole thing was yanked off the air. And I just felt like it was people colliding into each other, confused.

[Mike Ryan]

And he thought ESPN was going to.

[Stugotz]

Put dude, if I remember correctly, we were pulled off the air. I had driven to Miami Garden minutes earlier. I was there. We were like, what are we going to do here? Like, hello? Into microphones because they Also told us we couldn't talk about it. We did have conversations about how do we go about doing this show? Like, oh, you can't talk about it. And Zugat is like, we can't talk about why Dan isn't here. What are we doing? We were straight up, like, we lose all credibility with our audience, both local and national, if we don't reference why Dan's not here. So it was actually kind of negotiated. You're right. We'll just get some bristle guy to fill in here. Because we kept it real with our audience and we couldn't, with a straight face, look at our audience and be like, we can't talk about why Dan's not here. They told us you can't even mention that Dan's not there. Even though it was pretty obvious. But I remember being really scared by it because it made me realize how outsized reactions are if it gets picked up elsewhere. Because we were talking about it for weeks. I was joking about it. And I remember, I'm like, shit, am I in trouble? Because a PD reached out to me for details and I was kind of being vague with it because he hadn't been listening to the shows. Like, what exactly do you have planned? I'm like, you're going to find out with everybody else. And I'm also not an ESPN employee, so can I get away with saying that to a person? That's my boss, Mike.

[Mike Ryan]

The no sh of people not listening to us. We come from a local radio background where the program director's job and really the gm is to listen to every second of every show every single day. And we arrive at this big corporate giant, espn, and they're not listening to us. We're not accustomed to that.

[Dan Le Batard]

But so much.

[Mike Ryan]

But that was the main topic on our show for days leading up.

[Dan Le Batard]

But so much of this was confusing to me because if you guys remember our very first show, they say to us, where's the rundown? That's correct. That's the correct response. What do you mean, rundown? We don't do it that way. There's not a skeleton of organization on how it is that we do these things. It's why it is that it stood out and was weird and sloppy and different from everything that was happening. But I wasn't scared when that suspension came down. That's exactly the job that Skipper hired me to do, is make fires that don't matter to create a bit of influence for the other shows that are formatted to have more permission to paint outside the lines. It was what the instruction manual said. But it was always interesting to me how, as a shadowy figure, Skipper was protecting me, but I didn't know he was protecting me. I remember one time I went to New Orleans to meet him for dinner somewhere. And then when I got back that week, everyone at Bristol was calling me saying, I heard you had dinner with Skipper. And I called Skipper, and I'm like, hey, I didn't tell anybody that we had dinner. I didn't tell anybody. He's like, no, I did. I want them to know because they weren't having a lot of contact with him either. You have to understand the gulf of difference between where the power was at ESPN and the people who were running it daily. And those people weren't listening to our show.

[Stugotz]

So we just got a longer holiday that weekend.

[Mike Ryan]

And I gotta tell you, I listened to that show, though, and Bob Val was so good, I felt threatened.

[Stugotz]

That was where your insecurities crept in. But I remember it kind of feeling a little badass. And my chest was a little puffed out, like, yeah, no doubt. People definitely lost their jobs. Not directly, but several months later, when they did layoffs, I had a little guilt because the person that was overseeing us at that moment that I played coy with, like, did they get punished? Did they reverse engineer this punishment because of how poorly this went? So part of that has still kind of bothered me. But plans kept chugging along. We were headed to the Clevelander. And at the end of that summer, we finally left our Waxy studios, which we haven't given the proper amount of love throughout this oral history.

[Mike Ryan]

That was radio.

[Stugotz]

The Waxy Studios. I have plenty of stories about us building out the Clevelander. I spent so many hours, hours on end, building out this studio from scratch with the aforementioned one. And that was great because I got to basically curate a comfort zone and a new ecosystem for us to play with. But I don't really recall ever being sad to leave Miami Gardens. I was pretty pumped up about it and all the possibilities that the Clevelander would bring. Do you have any positive nostalgia for the first place that we were creating our content?

[Mike Ryan]

I remember Dan told me we were moving to the Clevelander. And what I started to do the next day was look at houses that were more north. They were in West Palm Beach. I was living in Plantation. I started looking and making my commute a lot longer than it needed to be. I don't know why I did that. I still don't know why I did that. I should have moved to Miami. I Was not sad either. The Clevelander felt big. It really did, because you're watching, like, big sporting events in Miami, and they're always coming in. Even though they're being played a half hour away in Miami Gardens, they're always coming in on the Clevelander. So it felt big to me. I was not nervous. I was not sad until I arrived at the Clevelander. Then the sadness started to kick in.

[Stugotz]

Yeah, because it's a sad place, because it felt big. But the rooms that we were creating, very small.

[Mike Ryan]

Yes.

[Stugotz]

We felt like we were there to do our radio show because part of this was the discussions. Hey, we're going to start putting your radio show on TV in some form or fashion. So we're going to design the studio with that in mind. And you get there, and you realize, highly questionable is this bigger operation.

[Mike Ryan]

Yes.

[Stugotz]

And we have a little broom closet, but it was our broom closet. And I was so happy to stop commuting to Miami Garden Gardens. It was like a murder a block away.

[Mike Ryan]

Same here.

[Stugotz]

It was not the safest place. And I remember just being really jacked up about, this is ours. Everybody knows the Clevelander. What we had in the Clevelander, despite it being basically a closet, our equipment was far superior than what we had at 790, the ticket. We're dealing with Disney here. This is Disney money. So, you know, we kind of had the best there. You know, it helps when your host brother is an artist. Having the artwork around the studio, it kind of made everything seem more colorful. It seemed brighter. But it's better than walking into a studio that looked like it was straight out of disco. And, Dan, for you, that was one of the things that they sold you on, right?

[Dan Le Batard]

It was. But I don't have the bad feelings about waxy that you guys do. It did feel like it was stuck in the 1970s, 1980s.

[Mike Ryan]

There were no windows.

[Stugotz]

So many boogers on that bathroom.

[Mike Ryan]

Oh, I miss them.

[Dan Le Batard]

But I actually associate it with the charm and hunger and inspiration of our start, when you don't really take too much inventory of those particular things. So I was happy to be going to do something that would be and feel bigger, because the difference between south beach and Miami Gardens is the difference between Las Vegas and, I'm going to.

[Mike Ryan]

Say Jordan and LeBron. Yes.

[Dan Le Batard]

Back to Jordan and LeBron. Yes. Fine. Yes. The difference between Jordan and LeBron finally got it. But when I got to the Clevelander, one of the many things that I noticed was, oh, espn, smoke and mirrors. Making television look a lot bigger and better than it actually is like, it was a very small place that didn't look like a very small place on television because of how good Bristol had gotten at making that stuff look like Magic Mike.

[Mike Ryan]

Did you miss Waxy at all? Because part of the reason I got into radio was I wanted to be a part of, like, a local cluster. So the one thing, now that I'm thinking about it, that I missed was I love walking through the halls and you just bump into Ron St. John, you know, and it's 1027 Magic 10.5 Light FM and 790, the ticket. I miss that.

[Stugotz]

I miss Magic 102.7, the oldies station, but also where Ron St. John used to be would be a nude calendar photo shoot in the middle of the Clevelander that if ESPN knew this was happening, they'd pull the plug immediately. It was a small space, but they had big visions for the Cleveland.

[Dan Le Batard]

Instead of Bald Ron St. John, there's a woman on stilts wearing only body paint dancing near the pool outside. Yes. Like, it wasn't 11, but it was 3pm like, it's. He didn't have to exaggerate that. It didn't need to lie. It was 3:00pm Oh, I swear to.

[Stugotz]

God it wasn't body paint. I got there early enough one day that there was a fully n. Oh.

[Dan Le Batard]

No, I saw that too. Yeah.

[Stugotz]

Fully nude woman taking a photo shoot for a calendar inside that bar that we'd have to walk through.

[Dan Le Batard]

That's right.

[Stugotz]

Yeah. So coming up in the next episode, we'll talk about how we decided to hold that information from ESPN and create a whole bunch of content for a little network called Fusion.

[Dan Le Batard]

Fusion.

[Stugotz]

All right, guys, the seasons are changing. You know what that means. Time to layer it up a little bit.

[Dan Le Batard]

Change the wardrobe.

[Chris Cody]

In Miami, a little bit of a.

[Stugotz]

Different story, but across the country, when.

[Chris Cody]

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[Stugotz]

When it's just effortless and comfortable and looks good.

[Chris Cody]

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[Stugotz]

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[Chris Cody]

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[Stugotz]

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[Chris Cody]

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[Stugotz]

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[Chris Cody]

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[Stugotz]

Head to roan.com dls and use promo code dls to save 20% off your entire order. That's a 20 off your entire order. When you head to ron r h.

[Dan Le Batard]

O n e.com dls and use code.

[Chris Cody]

Dls, it's time to embody your most confident self.

[Mike Ryan]

Stugotti here for my friends over at Simplisafe, the holiday season is right around the corner. That means you're away more and burglars know it. That means you need to protect your home. Right now, Simplisafe is giving exclusive early access to its Black Friday sale to lerd show listeners. Simplisafe is the home security I trust to keep my home and family safe. Simplisafe is a new way to protect your home that stops intruders before they break into your home. Old school systems only take action once someone is already inside your home. That's too late. SimpliSafe's Active Guard Outdoor Protection changes the game by preventing crime before it even happens. If someone's lurking around or acting suspiciously, those agents see them in real time, talk to them directly, set off your spotlight, and even call the police before they've had a chance to break in. Simplisafe is offering my listeners exclusive early access to their Black Friday sale this week only. You can take 6050 off any new system with a select professional monitoring plan. This is their best offer of the year. Head to SimpliSafe.com DLB to claim your discount and make sure your home is safe this holiday season. Don't wait. This offer won't last long. Keep your home, your family and your peace of mind protected with Simplisafe. There's no safe like Simplisafe, folks. The Emirates NBA cup is here.

[Chris Cody]

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[Mike Ryan]

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[Chris Cody]

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[Mike Ryan]

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[Chris Cody]

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[Mike Ryan]

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[Dan Le Batard]

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[Chris Cody]

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[Mike Ryan]

Help is available for problem gambling.

[Chris Cody]

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[Mike Ryan]

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[Chris Cody]

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[Dan Le Batard]

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[Mike Ryan]

In Ontario, bonus bets expire 168 hours after issuance.

[Chris Cody]

For additional terms and responsible gaming resources.

[Dan Le Batard]

See dkng co bball.

[Mike Ryan]

The Miami Heat are the biggest disappointment in sports.

[Dan Le Batard]

I hope they are uncomfortable. I hope they are stressed. I hope they are embarrassed. I hope everything.

[Mike Ryan]

Because they have flagrantly failed to live up to expectations. There is so many things that they have done wrong.

[Dan Le Batard]

I wanted another commercial where LeBron says.

[Stugotz]

Like a good neighbor, State Farm is.

[Pablo Torre]

There with a clutch jean because he doesn't have any clutch gene.

[Mike Ryan]

You don't just roll out people and win basketball games.

[Pablo Torre]

We are the champions.

[Stugotz]

Is Miami done?

[Mike Ryan]

Yes.

[Stugotz]

Finished.

[Mike Ryan]

So, wow.

[Dan Le Batard]

Sofa. You guys came out there jumping on stage like idiots. So quit whining and bitching like a little girl. I don't believe they want it back bad enough.

[Stugotz]

What holes are you guys exploiting in this defense? Them complaining and crying to referees.

[Dan Le Batard]

The transition LeBron James was made for the regular season, but come postseason time, he's the most overrated, overhyped superstar in my history in this business.

[Mike Ryan]

Seriously.

[Pablo Torre]

Take that with you.

[Mike Ryan]

They're not what they were sold to be. They're certainly not winning an NBA World championship. Not only is this series over, everything's over for Miami.

[Dan Le Batard]

Stu Gods. How do you spell the name of Oklahoma City's star?

[Mike Ryan]

D, U, R A N, T. Well.

[Dan Le Batard]

You got to get rid of the D because Oklahoma City doesn't play any of that. And you got to get rid of the U because he plays for Miami. He doesn't play for Oklahoma City. So what does that leave you?

[Mike Ryan]

That leaves you with Rant.

[Dan Le Batard]

What is that?

[Mike Ryan]

R A N T. What is that Rant?

[Pablo Torre]

Give it to me.

[Mike Ryan]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

Give it to me. Yeah. Give it to me again.

[Stugotz]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

What's Miami saying to Bill Simmons right now? Tell us how Our * tastes. LeBron just stuck a footnote right up your Choma City. Choklahoma City. And now your hearts are Brokelahoma City. You put your oil in barrels. We put our oil on women. Where's LeBron? E St. Gots. Where's he? Tommy. Dad, I'm Perkins. Yeah. John Barry was traded for Allah Abdul Nabi.

[Mike Ryan]

No way.

[Pablo Torre]

You stole the Sonics. We'll steal your chronic. We traded Wade, fired Bow and tore up the blueprint seven games ago.

[Mike Ryan]

I did that.

[Pablo Torre]

Hey, Bobby. What do you have to say to the National Media.

[Mike Ryan]

They can kiss my old Cuban ass.

[Pablo Torre]

Give it to me again. Give it to me again. Give it to me again. Kendrick Perkins played the last three games with a pulled groin. LeBron is to spend his entire summer getting his groin pulled. Not one, not two, not three, not four. LeBron wasn't counting championships. He was looking through your arena for a total number of teeth.

[Mike Ryan]

Oh, no.

[Pablo Torre]

Mike Miller broke your back with a broken back. His back is broken.

[Dan Le Batard]

Spiner.

[Pablo Torre]

Eddie Curry has more rings than Barkley. I get buckets. I get buckets. Doodle jump. Doodle jump. How many lottery picks does Cleveland have? Not one, not two, not three, not four. Hey, Poppy. What do you have to say to the national media?

[Mike Ryan]

They can kiss my old Cuban ass.

[Pablo Torre]

Give it to me again.

[Mike Ryan]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

Give it to me again. Give it to me again. Oklahoma is known for tornadoes that blow. Everything around Miami is known for women who do that. Oklahoma has tons of natural gas. Miami has so much more artificial ass. We have a beach, you know, we have hot models, you know, we have a trophy. You don't.

[Dan Le Batard]

You do have that boomer schooner thing, though, which is kind of cool.

[Mike Ryan]

Yeah, it is.

[Pablo Torre]

Mo cheeks. Mo cheeks. Is that an assistant coach or what Norris Cole says during a table dance at Tootsies? My. My voice is done. Sukats.

[Mike Ryan]

I can tell.

[Pablo Torre]

Dan, carry us out. Poppy, what do you have to say to the national media?

[Mike Ryan]

They can kiss my old Cuban ass. Dad, I am not gonna let you stop. This is a chance.

[Dan Le Batard]

I got nothing left.

[Mike Ryan]

No, this is a championship rant. You have never called for a fourth rant.

[Pablo Torre]

I got cramps. I got cramps. Ah.

[Dan Le Batard]

Come and carry me out of the. Out of here.

[Pablo Torre]

You gotta dig deep, Dan.

[Mike Ryan]

You gotta dig deep. You gotta give it to him one more time. Just one more time.

[Pablo Torre]

It's a championship rant. Damn. Give it to me again. You don't get to do this that often. Give it to me.

[Dan Le Batard]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

Again. Yeah. Miami's team has onions. Oklahoma City's team has nunions. And now our team has onion rings. Oklahoma City has nunion rings.

[Mike Ryan]

Onion rings.

[Pablo Torre]

That belt that Kevin Durant wears that belt. It's very thin. It's a very thin belt. LeBron James couldn't even get that around his gong. Okay, City, okay. Phil Impino. Jackson. Eric's bolsters. Phil, if you know Jackson, I'm hopping.

[Dan Le Batard]

Around on one leg.

[Pablo Torre]

Here's two guys.

[Mike Ryan]

Dan did the last stanza on one leg. He's my personal LeBron James.

[Pablo Torre]

Bobby, tell him what you think of the national media.

[Mike Ryan]

They can kiss my Old Cuban ass.

[Dan Le Batard]

So the traveling band of heat players, here are Roy's top 10 names for this traveling band of heat players.

[Mike Ryan]

Dan, before we get started here, because you know, I like to write these things down. I keep them. I have a folder with all of Roy's top tens in them and I list them 1 through 10. And I haven't been good. I've been off my game lately. But. And I only have one guess here, but you would agree this should, this should be on the list right here. Right at number three.

[Dan Le Batard]

That's pretty good.

[Mike Ryan]

That should be on the list.

[Dan Le Batard]

That's the first thing you've ever written down in all the time we've been doing this show. That has been good. I'm guessing that's on the list.

[Mike Ryan]

You're guessing that's on the list?

[Dan Le Batard]

I'm guessing that's going to make the list.

[Mike Ryan]

And you're maintaining. In six and a half years of doing the show, this is the first.

[Dan Le Batard]

You'Ve written down on paper. That is good because I write down.

[Mike Ryan]

A lot of questions during interviews and you've allowed me to ask them.

[Dan Le Batard]

That's. That's just to let you talk.

[Mike Ryan]

Okay.

[Dan Le Batard]

That's the first. That right there is the first clever thing you've ever written on a piece of paper.

[Mike Ryan]

How about this one?

[Dan Le Batard]

F you is what he just wrote down and you're on a roll. That would be the second. You're on fire this segment. Number 10, Roy the 10. The 10th best name that you have for the traveling band of heat master members would be Fleetwood McAdoo.

[Mike Ryan]

In these list, I think we've got five consecutive list with a McAdoo reference.

[Dan Le Batard]

Number nine, Roy Rage against the McGlory.

[Mike Ryan]

Never in my wildest dreams that I think McGlory would make this.

[Dan Le Batard]

I think you're number three. I think your number three is going to make this list.

[Mike Ryan]

You do, Right? Yes, I think it's going to be at number three, actually.

[Dan Le Batard]

Number eight, Roy Hauling a Roy Oats.

[Mike Ryan]

It's a bit of a stretch.

[Dan Le Batard]

Well, but now I'm confused by it because these, these lists tend to be Afro centric and Arroyo's not pretty damn funny. Number seven, Roy Earth, Wind in the Fire and Drawn Howard's Eyes.

[Mike Ryan]

Of course.

[Stugotz]

Number six, Roy Dexter's Midnight Runners.

[Dan Le Batard]

Now I'm just confused by the list number.

[Stugotz]

Number five, Roy Gladys Knight in the Damps.

[Mike Ryan]

Yeah, I didn't know that was coming.

[Dan Le Batard]

I did.

[Mike Ryan]

Yeah, I didn't know it was coming.

[Dan Le Batard]

What number are we on here, Roy? We're on four These are Roy's preferred nicknames instead of the heels for this traveling band of Heat members.

[Stugotz]

Number four, Roy Jones Temple Pilots.

[Dan Le Batard]

Here's your chance to be right here, Stu. Got. I think you're gonna get it right here.

[Mike Ryan]

And this one's better than Jones Temple Pilots, right? Yes.

[Dan Le Batard]

Yes.

[Stugotz]

Number three, Roy LeBron Jovi.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah, he's wielded at three. At number three, he's in your head, Roy. He is in your head.

[Mike Ryan]

I can't believe I placed it.

[Dan Le Batard]

You had it. Yes. You got it exactly right. Wow. Number two, Roy Haslam and the Blowfish. All of these would be Skip Bayless approved, right? Skip Bayless would be okay with all of these? Yes.

[Mike Ryan]

Well, yeah, it's not the Beatles, of course.

[Dan Le Batard]

And number one, Roy, the Mike Miller band. People writing in with Heatloaf.

[Mike Ryan]

Wow. How'd that get lit?

[Dan Le Batard]

Heat Loaf. The word.

[Mike Ryan]

Oh, we can have some fun. I'm sure our listeners could come up with some great ones here.

[Dan Le Batard]

Tim Kirkchin is one of the nicest men in the world. So this is the reason we want to play this game, because I can't imagine Tim Kirchen saying anything bad about anyone. So let's see. Let's go ahead. Give me some of the production value on this. On this new segment. And now it's time to play Douche or no Douche. Here's your host, Douche lebata, wearing sunglasses while playing poker. Douche or no douche.

[Mike Ryan]

I repeat, this is the dumbest show I've ever been on. Douchebag. Take them off.

[Dan Le Batard]

You're inside exploding fist bumps. Douche or no douche.

[Mike Ryan]

Douche. I hate that stuff. Just act like you've done this once.

[Dan Le Batard]

Guy who thinks he would score six goals out of 10 on a world cup goalie. Douche or no douche.

[Mike Ryan]

That's a double douche.

[Pablo Torre]

Hey.

[Mike Ryan]

Whoa.

[Dan Le Batard]

Mixing alcohol and an energy drink. Douche or no douche.

[Mike Ryan]

I'm gonna say no douche. But you gotta be an idiot, I guess, to do that.

[Dan Le Batard]

Calling people chief Douche or no douche.

[Mike Ryan]

Triple douche.

[Dan Le Batard]

Jeremy Schockey. Douche or no douche.

[Mike Ryan]

No douche. He can beat up all three of us by himself. And that's a fact, too. He would kill all three of us in a fight.

[Dan Le Batard]

Jaeger bombs. Douche or no douche.

[Mike Ryan]

I've never had one, but I'm gonna say no douche. Because if I drank one of them, I would throw up.

[Dan Le Batard]

I'm sure quoting from the Hangover. Douche or no douche.

[Mike Ryan]

No douche. That was pretty Funny.

[Dan Le Batard]

See you later, Kirkchin.

[Mike Ryan]

Okay, guys, see you. Thanks, chief.

[Dan Le Batard]

This guy didn't lose for as long as the UFC was relevant. He did not lose. And he lost Saturday night. And it was embarrassing to anybody who loves the sport or loves him. And afterward he sounded like the fugitive who has finally been caught. That's not me applying 44 year old set sensibilities to a fighter. I am not a fighter. Anybody who knows or listens to this show knows that I am not a fighter. Or haven't been a long time. Except for, you know, those days when I was in Coconut Grove at the tavern and I got my shirt pulled over my head and got kicked in the ear and stopped traffic and went home with a bloody ear, but I don't do that anymore.

[Mike Ryan]

Yeah, it doesn't sound like you were fighting much there. It sounds like someone was kicking your ass.

[Dan Le Batard]

I knew martial arts. I didn't know that that's what I was up against. If I known that that was what I was up against. I had no idea. Got my shirt. I actually got lucky. I lost a shit in the street, right? And traffic, you know, traffic got backed up because I was in the street with a bloody ear and my shirt pulled over my head.

[Mike Ryan]

Lucky it wasn't worse is what you're saying.

[Dan Le Batard]

I am very lucky. It wasn't worth like that. I shouldn't have. I shouldn't have gone down that path. I mean, because all of a sudden he starts doing martial arts. I'm looking at him and I feel like Indiana Jones in that movie, but without the weapon. Like I don't have a gun. And I'm like, oh no, what have I done?

[Mike Ryan]

Once he puts the shirt over the head, you know, you're in big trouble.

[Dan Le Batard]

I knew I was in big trouble. Trouble before that, long before the shirt got pulled over my head, I knew I was in trouble. I'm like, oh, no. Bigger than me. Andy knows martial arts. Bleep. No, that's a bad recipe. Poor choice by me. And then my ear is bleeding.

[Mike Ryan]

Oh, that's a new sneaker.

[Dan Le Batard]

I don't even know what my ear was bleeding. I just, you know.

[Mike Ryan]

Did you ever get the sneaker back or.

[Dan Le Batard]

Yes, I got. Yes, shoe came off.

[Mike Ryan]

Well, you are lucky then. Yeah. Excuse me.

[Dan Le Batard]

I hope you enjoyed this commercial break. With so much drama in the lbc.

[Mike Ryan]

It is kind of hard being Snoop Dog.

[Dan Le Batard]

Don't be fooled by the rocks that I got. I'm still, I'm still Puppy from the block. I hope you're enjoying this commercial break.

[Stugotz]

I'm not a player.

[Dan Le Batard]

I use crush a lot. Aha.

[Mike Ryan]

Okay.

[Stugotz]

What's up?

[Dan Le Batard]

Shut up.

[Stugotz]

I hope you enjoyed this commercial break.

[Dan Le Batard]

No one on the corner has swagger like us.

[Mike Ryan]

My hump, my hump, my hump.

[Dan Le Batard]

My lovely lady lumps.

[Mike Ryan]

Check it out.

[Dan Le Batard]

I hope you enjoyed this commercial break. Tell your friends to get with my friends and we can be friends.

[Mike Ryan]

We could do this every weekend.

[Dan Le Batard]

Stop, drop, shut them down. Open up shop. Oh, no.

[Mike Ryan]

That's a Rough Riders roll.

[Dan Le Batard]

I hope you enjoying this commercial break.

[Stugotz]

Never meant to make your daughter cry.

[Dan Le Batard]

I apologize a trillion Times.

[Stugotz]

I'm sorry, Ms. Jackson.

[Dan Le Batard]

I'm for real.

[Chris Cody]

Lomas grande que lo mas duro kain.

[Mike Ryan]

Okay. K, do you have a pen?

[Dan Le Batard]

Yeah.

[Stugotz]

Here you go. Kind. Yeah, kind like Kai, but kind.

[Mike Ryan]

Kind. The kind without the d. Yeah. Los mas grande. I'm just practicing. Los mas grande. Que son is this? Los. What is this?

[Chris Cody]

Lo.

[Mike Ryan]

Okay. Los mas grande. Que son lomas duro. Kind is duro, right?

[Stugotz]

Yeah.

[Chris Cody]

Try to pause between these two.

[Stugotz]

Yeah. Because you're saying the bigger they are, the harder they fall.

[Mike Ryan]

Okay. Okay. Los mos grande. Ak son lomas duro. Kant. The bigger they are.

[Stugotz]

You're. You're in a dramatic telenovela.

[Dan Le Batard]

So you know.

[Mike Ryan]

Los mas grande. Que son?

[Stugotz]

Los mas grande Que son? Okay, Some dramatic acting.

[Mike Ryan]

Okay.

[Stugotz]

Overacting.

[Mike Ryan]

Ready?

[Stugotz]

Yes.

[Mike Ryan]

Lomas durokain Even if you do one.

[Chris Cody]

Sentence and then the next sentence.

[Stugotz]

Yeah. Take your time.

[Mike Ryan]

Los mas grande Que son lomas duro kain.

[Stugotz]

Todo suvida Juan Wiener a buscado el cliche Perfecto.

[Mike Ryan]

Los mas grande que son lomas duro.

[Stugotz]

Kind Pero ahora Juan Wiener busca el.

[Mike Ryan]

Amor Perfecto porque estoy tonsolo entodos los lugaris quino deve Maria nomi importa que estas quesando mi mayor amigo Quien tambien esun delinquente peligroso Ay, peronopo de mos acerlo no es a sunto de porder Acerlo Tenemos que. Okay.

[Dan Le Batard]

Dali este amor sobra vive la Maria Donde estas la angustia Porque Maria las.

[Mike Ryan]

Ranas ranas Porque iranas ian mahoramigo de.

[Dan Le Batard]

Gran mar Estuve esperando que Enzo.

[Mike Ryan]

Ron San Juan de magico Siento dos punto siete che comaria cosas malas.

[Pablo Torre]

Protagonzido por Juan Wiener Maria. Ay, Juan hoine.

[Stugotz]

Dreamer pounces fists on the triple A concrete A girl oh, Dreamer hoping he'll see the legend Glen R play more games oh, yeah. Oh, hands out more on sandwiches and.

[Pablo Torre]

Is a little peculiar courier oh, thought.

[Stugotz]

Of eating ribs with his hands is insane oh, yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

John says low how you love that catchphrase Bad news for opposing teams in the triple he's all smiles till the broads are clutch again clutch again clutch again John says low how you love that catchphrase oh, bad news for Ran Rondo Stupid face.

[Stugotz]

He's all smiles Boston's.

[Pablo Torre]

Never winning it all again Stupid face, stupid face Everybody he sees who's cracking skulls and stealing from rookies Everyone knows.

[Dan Le Batard]

It'S Richie.

[Pablo Torre]

Who'S eating nails and poisonous cobra's intimidating guys on his team who stole my wife and broke my new.

[Dan Le Batard]

Glasses Everyone knows it's Richie and Richie.

[Pablo Torre]

Has monstrous thighs Be careful, he'll gouge your eyes Screams racial slurs at black.

[Stugotz]

Guys but out of love.

[Pablo Torre]

But out of mum.

[Stugotz]

Dan goes Bo goes and Pat goes Yarn Poppy goes Dan goes and the van goes and my gill goes but there's one sound that no one knows what does the guy say?

[Mike Ryan]

Human com be unparalleled.

[Pablo Torre]

What the God say?

[Mike Ryan]

May I meet creator Contagious stubborn Open apple October having reentered of the gods recovery elder digested Remaining risks sideline visit reefer the Tony Rational J separate communicate how long ago what the God say? Sophisticated sophistication. Suffering. Stating reclamation. You monk fray it. A friend, Family.

[Stugotz]

What did a God say? I don't know who you are.

[Dan Le Batard]

I don't know what you want.

[Stugotz]

If you're looking for a ransom, I.

[Dan Le Batard]

Can tell you I don't have money.

[Stugotz]

But what I do have are a.

[Dan Le Batard]

Very particular set of skills.

[Stugotz]

Skills I've acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare. People like you. If you let my daughter go now, that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you.

[Mike Ryan]

I will not pursue you.

[Dan Le Batard]

But if you don't, I will look for you.

[Stugotz]

I will find you and I will kill you. Marty. This town is like a memory. And the memory is fading. It's just a jungle. A gutter out there in outer space.

[Dan Le Batard]

Okay, very good.

[Stugotz]

I think human consciousness is a tragic misstep. Evolution. We became self aware. That's nature. Creating an aspect of nature that goes against itself. LeBron James should not exist according to natural law. The honorable thing to do, Marty, is to deny your programming. Walk hand in hand with your brother Stu into your own extinction.

[Pablo Torre]

Skip Bayless.

[Dan Le Batard]

The reason why the San Antonio spurs.

[Pablo Torre]

Should be favored to come out of.

[Dan Le Batard]

The west and would make the Finals.

[Pablo Torre]

Toughs is because of the emergence of Tiago Splitter. Thank you.

[Dan Le Batard]

Danny Green's not winning the finals. MVP Danny Green is not going to continue that pace of shooting in this series.

[Mike Ryan]

That's what I like to hear. He's not what I like to hear.

[Stugotz]

So what I like to hear is you're losing grip with reality. I mean, he only has to do it one more time. He's done it time and time again in this series. Welcome to Thunderdome. You're in Thunderdome now. You're messing with the champs. Three time that core. Tim Duncan. Four time champs. Okay, they have. All aboard, people. All aboard. Back to back. It ain't easy, folks. It ain't gotta dig deep down heart of a champion. And it looks like they got a bigger heart than usual so far. Who's gonna prove me wrong? Shane? Is it gonna be you? Badier, you listening? You're a Duke guy. You're smart. Gonna be.

[Dan Le Batard]

You talked to him.

[Stugotz]

Give me all you got.

[Dan Le Batard]

You said Shane, all you got.

[Mike Ryan]

Then I said Battier.

[Dan Le Batard]

Then you went to Battier. You're talking to this.

[Stugotz]

Well, he wasn't listening. He hasn't been listening in this series because he's barely into it. He hasn't been playing.

[Mike Ryan]

Talk to Ray Mike. Talk to Ray Ray.

[Stugotz]

Look at me. You gonna give me all you got? Give me all you got. Chalmers, what the hell, man? What the hell? I'll get back to you. I'm still seething, Miller. Kind of confusing the last two games. Give me all you got. You, Donnis, you're a warrior. You've been giving me all you got for years and years and years. Two more games can give me all you got. Joel. Anthony, don't touch the ball. You just stay away. James Jones, nice looks. In garbage time, hit a three list. You always giving me what you got. And you're always ready. Got no problem with you, LeBron.

[Dan Le Batard]

Why are you talking to the back end of the roster? I don't understand why you started this.

[Stugotz]

Beat bronze, James. Big man on campus. Four time mvp. Finals champ. Wave the world off your shoulders. Now you're free. Now you're the boat. Boris. D.L. stopped you.

[Dan Le Batard]

That fat ass.

[Mike Ryan]

Boris. D.L.

[Stugotz]

Wade'S doing it. I know Wade's giving me all he's got. Lbj. Mvp. Now, don't think I don't know what's going on with that Nike campaign. On the side of the building, there's one checkmark on. On there. Final 2013. MVP. There's supposed to be more check marks on there. There's supposed to be NBA champion and NBA Finals mvp. You'll let down Nike, Braun. You'll let down your team. You're going to let down the city. We're talking legacy. Give me all you got. Give me all you got.

[Pablo Torre]

Spo.

[Dan Le Batard]

Oh, dear God. You just watch the chemistry and the body language of these guys.

[Mike Ryan]

Wade and LeBron.

[Dan Le Batard]

They don't sit next to each other on the bench anymore. It does seem like something a little bit funky is going on with this team. LeBron James is going to be thought of as Will Chamberlain, a guy who.

[Mike Ryan]

Was a great, great individual player, but who could not influence his team to win. And I'll tell you one other thing. He'll be out of there the first time he can opt out. Because if they don't win this year, they're not going to win next year. With this cast, I am seeing shades.

[Dan Le Batard]

Of the 07 finals. LeBron James here, Shane Battier, just can no longer play.

[Stugotz]

You need a replacement for Dwyane Wade. You need a new number two.

[Mike Ryan]

I expect San Antonio as constituted now to beat Miami.

[Stugotz]

If I'm in one of the other.

[Dan Le Batard]

2019, I'm not looking at Dwayne Wade.

[Stugotz]

Like, we have to get that guy.

[Dan Le Batard]

He's a franchise player totally worth $20 million.

[Stugotz]

I'm looking at it as I'm gonna just sort of let the Heat roll.

[Dan Le Batard]

With this for another summer.

[Stugotz]

Unless they take on something really awful.

[Dan Le Batard]

From my team, I wouldn't be surprised.

[Mike Ryan]

If Riley fled the seat.

[Dan Le Batard]

Regardless of how this season turns out.

[Stugotz]

You'Ve got to find a way to trade Chris Bosh.

[Dan Le Batard]

I don't think they can win four. I don't think they can win four. This Miami team that had built such a memorable historic identity during the season.

[Mike Ryan]

Has just now thrown it away.

[Dan Le Batard]

Give it to me.

[Pablo Torre]

Give it to me again. Give it to me again.

[Dan Le Batard]

Again.

[Pablo Torre]

San Antonio as a franchise in its entire history has never, ever trailed in a final series until now. Tony Parker, your best player is French. Of course he's going to retreat at the end. LeBron. LeBron pulled out his Eva Doria and wee weed all over your dreams. Duncan is from the Virgin Islands. When LeBron gets done vacationing there, they're just gonna be islands. Joel Anthony has as many rings as Will Chamberlain.

[Mike Ryan]

He does.

[Pablo Torre]

You can't smell manure without the man. Give it to me again. Give it to me again Give it to me again Again. Drake couldn't get into the locker room last night to hold the Larry O'Brien trophy. Hey, Drake. Barkley knows the feeling. Justin Varnado has as many rings as Dr. J.

[Mike Ryan]

It's Jarvis, Dan, Whatever.

[Pablo Torre]

Justin has as many rings as Jerry west and Oscar Robertson. LeBron's 37 points in a game. Seven more than any in any postseason game this year. Biggest game, biggest time. Clutch this. I keeps it. 300. Like the Romans. 300, bitches.

[Mike Ryan]

We're the Trojans.

[Pablo Torre]

Give it to me. Give it to me again. Give it to me again. Again. Yeah. San Antonio is the fastest growing city in the United States, but it's only because of Boris Dio. Remember the Alamo? That's what he says to the waitress, kind of in his accent. Remember the Alamode? San Antonio is named after St. Anthony of Padua, whose feast day is July 13, as opposed to D, whose feast day is whatever day it happens to be.

[Mike Ryan]

That's wrong.

[Dan Le Batard]

It is wrong. I feel bad about all of this.

[Pablo Torre]

San Antonio's a nice, classy team, but dusty San Antonio is known for tumbleweed. Birdman is going to spend his off season tumbling in weed. Give it to me again. Give it to me again. Give it to me again. Again. Texas has San Antonio won. San Antonio, we have a million Antonios. Danny Green thought it was best of five. South Florida kicked that tax ass. You pick up McGrady while we'll pick up your ladies. Done. Can. Done. Can't. Not one, not two, not three, not four. Now that doesn't sound so much like a joke anymore, does it? Now it sounds like a mother threat. Give it to me again. Give it to me again.

[Mike Ryan]

Championship rinse.

[Pablo Torre]

Give it to me again. Again. Back to back up 5.28seconds left. The trophy got brought out. The cord was roped off. I haven't seen anybody gag like that since. Two girls, one cup. We lost a shoe. You lost the game. We lost a headman. You lost the series. We almost lost the Marlins to your city.

[Dan Le Batard]

Okay, you got us on that one.

[Pablo Torre]

Norris Cole has two titles in two NBA years. Bill Russell, he's coming to get you. That's why Russell looked last night so old. He looks like he's wearing a costume of Bill Russell.

[Dan Le Batard]

Holy bleep. My abs are cramping.

[Mike Ryan]

Keep going, Levitz.

[Pablo Torre]

Give it to me. Give it to me again.

[Mike Ryan]

That's right.

[Pablo Torre]

Give it to me again. Again. You have a quaint boat that takes nice tourists down the riverwalk. We have a bang bus. You have actual cowboys in 2013.

[Dan Le Batard]

We have cocaine cowboys.

[Pablo Torre]

San Antonio labor has been screwed for years by the Southwest Workers Union. The Miami heats. Labor gets screwed by Gabrielle Union. Give it to me. Give it to me. Me. Again. Give it to me again. Again.

[Mike Ryan]

Hang in there, Les.

[Pablo Torre]

Here. Larry Coker wins championships there. He coaches the University of Texas. San Antonio Whatevers. LeBron. Bully. Wade.

[Dan Le Batard]

Bully.

[Pablo Torre]

Ban. Bully. Cher's Bully Anderson. Bully.

[Dan Le Batard]

Nobody else scored last night.

[Mike Ryan]

No, that's it.

[Pablo Torre]

Those are the only five guys that scored.

[Dan Le Batard]

Anderson had three points.

[Pablo Torre]

Why am I calling him a bully?

[Dan Le Batard]

He had three. Nobody else scored.

[Mike Ryan]

I don't know.

[Pablo Torre]

Justin Varnado acts up.

[Mike Ryan]

Dan, it's Jarvis.

[Pablo Torre]

Whatever. Ginobli. He'll just give you his cookies. You have a Popovich, we pop that Gucci. You have a Popovich, we bombed champagne. You have a Popovich, we. Papa. Molly.

[Mike Ryan]

I'm sweating.

[Pablo Torre]

Woo. Give it to me. Give it to me again. Give it to me again. Again.

[Dan Le Batard]

Oh, good Lord.

[Mike Ryan]

I'm starting to feel bad for the Spurs.

[Pablo Torre]

I felt I three stanzas ago. I felt bad for them. They don't deserve this. They're classy. They're great. I feel guilty about it.

[Mike Ryan]

They were a hugging LeBron and Wade.

[Pablo Torre]

America runs on Duncan. DL runs to Duncan. Wade dunks over Duncan. Did you see that fast break with Duncan last night? Still got the only player in the league on the fast break who dribbles while looking at the ball.

[Mike Ryan]

Poor Duncan.

[Pablo Torre]

Only five Heat players scored during game seven. But you know all. All of them scored afterward. Knock, knock. Who's there? Stugott.

[Mike Ryan]

Stugott who?

[Dan Le Batard]

No, it's just you, Stugotts.

[Pablo Torre]

You're knocking on the building because you left game six early and you want back in that suck one more time. One more time. I'm gonna have an aneurysm. Give it to me. Give it to me again. Give it to me again. Again. Stugott's two years in the league. Norris Cole, two trophies. Two rings in two years.

[Mike Ryan]

In 20 years, Norris Cole's gonna be handing out Finals MVP trophies.

[Pablo Torre]

It's gonna be the new Bill Russell. Poppy. Poppy. We've got some words for the national media in two languages. Poppy. What do you have to tell Skip Bayless?

[Dan Le Batard]

Eat it.

[Pablo Torre]

What do you have to tell Brian Windhorse?

[Dan Le Batard]

Eat more of it.

[Pablo Torre]

What do you have to tell Rick Bucha?

[Dan Le Batard]

Eat it with sauce.

[Pablo Torre]

What do you have to tell Greg Doyle? What do you have to tell Wilbur?

[Dan Le Batard]

Eat it with mayonnaise.

[Pablo Torre]

What do you have to tell Simmons?

[Dan Le Batard]

Eat it with salsa.

[Pablo Torre]

What do you have to tell Sid Rosenberg on General Principal?

[Stugotz]

Eat it all.

[Pablo Torre]

What do you have to tell Michelle Beetle? No, no, no. We need to stop now. No, no, no. Stop now. Go to break.

[Dan Le Batard]

True or false. These are all true or false questions. True or false. I, LeBron, have talked to Dwayne Wade on the phone giggling about the beef with Kevin Durant.

[Mike Ryan]

False.

[Dan Le Batard]

Oh, that ruins my next question. My next question is, I've talked to Kevin Durant on the phone giggling about the beat. Dwayne wa. But I. I do look forward to talking to both of them about it, for sure. True or false? Mario Chalmers thinks he's better than I am. True.

[Mike Ryan]

Absolutely true. Come on, man.

[Pablo Torre]

That's so great.

[Dan Le Batard]

True or false? I'm tired of having to tell people no when they ask me for money. True. Oh, you like that? The end of the season, the first season in Miami was the worst basketball pain I have ever known. True or false?

[Mike Ryan]

Oh, man, it would be.

[Stugotz]

Yeah, I would say true.

[Dan Le Batard]

You were Tom Hanks and Castaway. I can't even imagine LeBron, what that was like. Like what?

[Stugotz]

You.

[Dan Le Batard]

You went into hiding, like nobody could soothe you. Yeah, me and Wilson.

[Stugotz]

Remember, he told.

[Mike Ryan]

Us he was in his house and he come out for two weeks, and.

[Stugotz]

He didn't eat for two weeks.

[Mike Ryan]

He just hung out with Wilson.

[Dan Le Batard]

You and Wilson. True or false? Last season felt better than even the first championship.

[Mike Ryan]

True.

[Dan Le Batard]

Why is that, by the way? Oh, man, I think, you know, just to be able to, you know, to repeat and, you know, it was an unbelievable challenge for all of us, you know, and to be putting back in that position where we compete for another finals, man, and to have another, you know, to have the opportunity, have a Game seven on our home floor, that was. That was the ultimate. So I would definitely say true. So more rewarding because it was harder then, huh? Yeah, more rewarding because it was harder. Because, I mean, gosh, though, that seems hard to believe, though, LeBron, because Game 6 in Boston, Game 6 in Boston, the second year was an insanity. Like, it's not like that was easy. You're absolutely right. That was insanity, too. I mean, you can probably 99.9 of American world thought, you know, it was over for us again, and going. Going into Boston to where we didn't have too much success. True or false, LeBron?

[Mike Ryan]

True or false.

[Dan Le Batard]

The Heat consulted me before going in on Odin and Beasley. False. You know, but, you know, I heard the name come up, but I definitely, you know, heard from SPO a little.

[Stugotz]

Bit about it, but, you know, I.

[Dan Le Batard]

Think we have a great organization, Pat. You know, SPO and those guys, they.

[Stugotz]

Kind of handle all the, you know.

[Dan Le Batard]

Acquisitions, but I'm happy to have them.

[Mike Ryan]

True or false? They should consult you.

[Dan Le Batard]

Hey, it's up to them, man. I'm happy to try to get guys down here for sure, man. And you know, I'm, I was excited about, you know, Odin's signing and B's, you know, for sure. True or false. Mickey Harrison was the worst dancer at my wedding. False. I think he's lying there. I think he just wants to save his own. Who was the worst answer at the wedding? Name him.

[Mike Ryan]

No, I can't name him.

[Dan Le Batard]

I can't name him. But I'll tell you what, I'm gonna.

[Stugotz]

Protect my owner for sure.

[Mike Ryan]

LeBron. I don't know if Ron Rothstein was there, but if he was, I'm guessing he was the worst answer. Oh, man.

[Dan Le Batard]

Now he was not there, but definitely would have been.

[Mike Ryan]

True or false.

[Dan Le Batard]

When you guys do nickname Jersey Day, Chalmers is going to fight you. He wants to be King Chalmers. King Chalmers. True. And finally. We'll get you out of here on this one, LeBron. True or false. And this is an easy one. It's just the easiest one of the interview. I'm going to play in Miami next year. Oh man, that ain't fair, right?

[Mike Ryan]

That was the one time you're going to be asked that.

[Dan Le Batard]

You know what I said? I've heard all the questions in the world. With that you got had a first one.

[Mike Ryan]

I appreciate that.

[Stugotz]

Season's Greetings podcast audience. It's Mike Ryan. And now is that time of year where you start hosting your family gatherings. Be it Thanksgiving, be it the upcoming holiday season. You're gonna have some folks in town, you're gonna be doing some entertaining. So why don't you make your family time a Miller time? It's the first thing that I roll out when I got guest over at the house, an ice cold bucket filled with that beautiful white can see. Miller time makes family time all the more special because for one thing, it's got taste that you can depend on. No games, no gimmicks, just a great beer. For people who like beer, Miller Lite is brewed for taste. It hits different than other light beers. It's got simple ingredients like malted barley for rich balanced toffee note flavors and an iconic golden color. And at just 96 calories and 3.2 grams of carbs per 12 ounces, miller time is always a good time. Even during during the festive times. Making memories at year end gatherings tastes like Miller time. Go to millerlite. Com Dan to find delivery options near you. Or you can pick up some Miller Light pretty much anywhere they sell beer, celebrate responsibly. Miller Brewing Co. Milwaukee, Wisconsin 96 calories and 3.2 carbs per 12 ounces. Fewer calories and carbs and premium regular beer.