How Awful Announcing Took Over Sport Media Coverage

All right.

Joining me now, very excited to have him on the SI Media podcast.

Never been on before.

He is the owner of Awful Announcing.

And if anyone has ever been on this podcast or listened to this podcast, we get everything from Awful Announcing.

So, I figured who better to talk to now that the NFL season is over.

Ben K.

Ben, how are you?

I'm good.

I'm a little, uh, bummed football is over, but, uh, it's, uh, for a married man, it's time to go to HomeGoods and, uh, you know , go to some chain restaurants while we're there.

So, just a, just a slight step down.

It's, uh, the errands, the errands are now done on Sundays, that's for sure.

Yes.

And for you guys though, I guess.

You guys post so much and you guys cover everything.

I, even with football over, you guys are, I'm sure still extremely busy.

So let me, I wanna get into the site.

I wanna get into you and, and obviously, media people.

Let me start with this.

Um, Are you the sole owner of Awful announcing?

Yeah, I own, um, about 80% of awful announcing, um, and I had some, I used to work in Silicon Valley.

I had some friends who were early employees at some tech companies who put in like a little bit of money, so 3 or 5% here or there, but essentially, Um, there is no institutional money.

It, it's really just, uh, myself and, uh, 3 other people essentially.

So , what do you do day to day specifically as the owner?

I mean, I know you even write posts, which, you know, as the owner of the site is, you know, you, you would think maybe you wouldn't do that, but obviously, there's a lot that goes into covering sports media cause it is a day to day thing.

What, what do you do?

What are your like daily responsibilities as the owner of the site?

Yeah, that's a good question.

I have my hands on a lot of things.

So, I'll wake up, I'll look around to see if there's anything from the night before that we missed.

We have a Slack room, we'll kind of prioritize what we should cover, assign stories.

I'll set meetings with uh advertisers, uh, you know, potential content partnerships, like we work with MSN.

We're talking to a large portal right now about a partnership.

So, all the web hosting, the ads, accounting, taxes, I wear all of those hats because I am of the thought that most of the money should go to the writers.

Um, I think there were a lot of large content companies 10 years ago or so, that had a large technology team, executive team, sales team, and, um, you know, I think that model does work for companies of a certain size, but for just a kind of a, a one site, or two-site, or 3 sites .

You kind of need someone to do a lot of those things themselves, so I really kind of tackle all of those things and try to be helpful with ideas, um, for content, and I also deal with the PR folks when they're unhappy, uh, we'll get into that.

We'll get into that.

Are you, are you working basically 7 days a week, 12 hours a day?

What, because it is.

You never know when something's gonna happen in, in sports media.

Yeah, I, I think I work about 8 to 10-hour days, and some of those days, um, on the weekdays, you know, it's maybe just watching something and going on my phone and saying, hey, Gus Johnson just said this, or, you know, the, the feed went out, or, um, you know, fan ran onto the field, or, you know, what have you.

Uh, on the weekends, I probably work 3 to 4 hours a day.

I try to, um, you know, slow down a little bit.

I think, uh, Pre, pre-cohabitating.

I think I was a machine doing 12 to 14 hours each day, but, uh, I have domesticated a little bit and slowed it down.

And, and how big is the staff at Awful announcing?

Like how many editors, writers are , are working there these days?

Yeah, we, we have 7 full-time people, um, and then some people who are half-time or freelancers.

So the team's about 10 or 11 people with 7 full-time folks.

It, I am, I'm always, I mean, you guys do post a lot, so that I'm always sort of like, there's people doing a lot of work there probably because I know, you know, it's not gonna be a 30-person operation.

Um, do you get, I remember back in my hot clicks days , one of the things I loved about it was before Twitter and I would get anywhere from 100 to 200 emails every single day when I was doing Hot Clicks with submissions.

And then Twitter came along and that sort of killed the email kind of thing.

But do you guys get Your readers submitting, you know, like, because what I'm always amazed is about sometimes with thoughtful announcing is there'll be a clip from like an announcer calling a game that no one's watching, but you will somehow find the gaffe.

Is that coming from readers?

Tell me how that happens.

Yeah, sometimes it's the inbox, sometimes it's Twitter, and for your, uh, newer.

Uh, listeners and, and, and viewers, Hot Clicks was like such an institution back in the day, uh, and, and, you know, Jimmy's probably talked about it before, but Jimmy had this column called Hot Clicks, and he would link out to these small sports blogs that maybe got 1000 to 2000 page views a day, maybe even a week.

And if you got into Hot Clicks, you better hope that your hosting situation was good because Hot Clicks could send you 50,000, 100,000 page views.

And for people who blogged 2008 to 20, 2012, or whenever it, it, it kinda went away, Hot clicks could just like make or break your day, your week, your month.

Um, and I know those all came from sports bloggers or readers, but, yeah, it's a similar thing that we're getting inbound stuff.

And plus, our staff is large enough that we have our eyes on a lot of stuff that we're watching .

We have the TV on in the background.

While we're working, so it's a combination of, uh, incoming.

I appreciate the nice words about Hot clicks.

It was the most fun I ever had, and it was, and I don't think it's a coincidence.

It was before Twitter like that.

So, and you know what it was back then?

Everything was like even the blog names, you know, there was like with Leather, which is like this little insight thing for Chris Berman.

I think there was a blog I used to link to all the time called The Legend of Cecilio Guante.

It was like a Both maybe average at best reliever and like I, the creat I felt like back then there was so much creativity, whereas I don't feel like there's any creativity now, but that's a whole other issue.

Yeah, I mean, I think there was this era of sports blogs that younger people don't know and, and you know well because you got pitched on Hot Clicks.

My one of my first jobs out of college was I was a yard barker.

And I would sign up those sports blogs to uh be part of the Yard Barker Network where we would sell their ad, uh, advertising.

So, I would see, I would meet with these people who were fun and interesting and smart, who had these great sports blogs, names and funny articles.

And I really just thought like, this is where I belong.

These people who, you know, they're not going to the traditional way of, of, um, journalism and broadcast, but they have these sites that are You know, um, significant , or they have these podcasts like I think I signed, uh, Skeets and Tass Melis to the network.

I, Spencer Hall, like, I was like, these are my people, more, you know, more than like a bar that you went into or like you joined a kickball team when you're in your twenties.

Like you're looking for your type of people and I was like, sports blogs, these, these are my people and now I'm like over 40 and I'm, I'm still here with my people, less of us, you know, those are some huge names that you, that you signed.

So that's, that's, I mean, that to me like right there like skeets and, and toss like.

That was the peak of it all.

They were so creative and so funny.

It just, it, it, you know, I get bummed out about what things are like now, but we get into that later.

I, I should have done this at the top because I didn't even realize, cause I know awful announcing.

was something first before you bought into it.

And I didn't realize you had even bought into it back when I was still doing Hot Clicks.

I thought that came after.

Just give me the timeline of like, What it was and then you, and then you getting involved in it.

And, cause it used to be, if I'm not mistaken, it used to just be, before you owned it, it was really just pointing out the gaffes and the bad announcing.

It wasn't just covering all of media and, you know, contracts and all that stuff.

If I, I think that's how it worked, but tell me, you could correct me if I'm wrong there.

Yeah, so going back in a time machine and trying to be concise, a guy named Brian Powell started off announcing, and that was one of the blogs when I was at Yard Barker that we had reached out to and said, hey, you're not gonna sell your own advertising cause that's tough, and it just doesn't work like that.

We have a team of salespeople, we'll do it for you.

So, I started reading the site, and I was like, this is awesome.

And this is like pre-Twitter for anyone.

Like, if you go back to 08, 09, it's just different.

And awful announcing was pointing out these gaffes, but they were also sharing these things, like, what happened to this person who used to be on SportsCenter?

Oh, they went over here.

Or how come the TV rights for this flipped here.

Um, back then, like a lot of offices, you would have the sports Business Journal to kind of read those news stories, and that was like a print thing, and you just didn't know about anything else.

So, um, Brian did really great with that site, and then his, he had some other ambitions outside of blogging.

And the site just stopped, uh, in 2009, and I, I didn't even think of it as like a business opportunity.

I was like, no one else, I, I need to get this information.

I like reading this site.

Like someone has to do this.

And so I approached him because we had the relationship because I had, uh, you know, worked at Yard Barker, and I said.

I'd like to continue the site.

I read it.

I comment on it.

I think I could find some writers, and it can keep going.

And I made him an offer, and, uh, he accepted it in 2010.

So I've owned the site 15 years, and wow, you're, you're right, it was a little bit narrower, more specifically on, on announcing, but as more podcast launches as more TV deals, as FS1 launch, a streaming launch, like we just started kind of covering more and more things because we found people were interested in.

Kind of a wider scope of stuff.

I didn't realize it's been 15 years since sort of, I, I, you know, in my head because I was here for the old version, like, I always think of this as the new version, but now it's not new, it's 15 years old, it's kind of wild, but it's a long time.

Um.

I appreciate that background.

So, let's get into The, the posting and the, and this, and what's on the site, do you?

Oversee everything or do you let editors handle that?

Yeah, so we, we have an editor on shift usually anywhere from like 8:00 a.m. to around midnight.

And so that person who's on shift is in charge of what they're posting as well as what other writers are posting to give it a once-over, um, so wait, that's one person from 8:00 a.m. to midnight.

No, no, there, there's 3 or 4 different shifts.

Got it, got it, got it, got it.

We're not that, so, so I invented this , uh, shift schedule where there's a writer, there's an editor, sometimes a social media person.

And I always tell my team, they'll tell you this, that like when they say we could do it better, I go, of course, I invented this during a dog walk.

Like, there's no way, this wasn't taught to me.

Um, so there's always an editor on shift that, you know, we, we kind of give a heads up to what to look for, and, and they're kind of in charge of finding stuff and editing other people's work.

Um, so, you know, every once in a while, I'll do a little bit of editing over like a feature, but usually, it, you know, our features usually go through a different editor, but it's, it's a shift system, more or less.

Do, do you have a, a, a sort of a philosophy, uh, a game plan, whatever it is on What you wanna post, what you wouldn't post , where, you know, there's a, you know, there's a lot of talk about, um, amplifying people who should not maybe be amplified.

Where do you stand on what, what sort of would make you not post something?

Yeah, it's like a really good question.

There are some people who used to be in sports media, and then they fall out of it, like Curt Schilling, like 10 years ago, was in sports media, and then, you know, he talked about sports a little bit, but more kind of politics, and now he's gone, we don't cover him.

Um, like Jason Whitlock, other people, that, um, so we kind of don't wanna stretch too far outside of our lane if it's someone, you know, like Sage Steele was at ESPN not too long ago.

So if she says something, we probably, you know, and it doesn't relate to sports media, we probably won't cover.

But if she makes a specific comment about someone in sports media or about a sport, we'll usually talk it out as a group, being like, do we think this is relevant.

Enough for us to cover.

Cause you're totally right, with podcasters, with streaming networks, like the people who are leaving sports media, and just how much people are kinda talking on social media, there's just a wide, wide, wide amount of area we could cover.

And we generally as a group, kind of get together and talk out.

Like, is this in our beat or are we stretching a little too far outside?

I mean, I sort of feel like, I mean, what I try to do is I, well, I mean, first of all, I would say this, there are, there are probably 3 or 4 people who I will never write about and never even mention on this podcast, and if their names get mentioned, I would probably edit it out.

But in addition to that, there's also this industry of say the most ridiculous thing, so awful announcing picks it up.

In terms of sports.

I'm not talking about politics.

I'm talking about someone saying, you know, LeBron is the, you know, he's only really like the 88th best player that's ever played when people think he's like 1st, 2nd, or 3rd.

And then you guys post that.

that's, I'm wondering if there's ever a time where it's like, You know this guy's an asshole.

You know he's saying it just to get posted.

We shouldn't do it, but there's the argument of like page views.

So I'm just curious how that all plays out for you guys.

Yeah, I think if you're like a national name and it's not a new take, um, like I, someone had like Patrick Mahomes like a few years ago outside of their tops, and I was like, what do you, it was on First Take, and I was like, we gotta, we gotta cover that.

Um, so, we do kind of cover these bad takes.

If we think they're genuine and they're new, they didn't say it like a year ago.

Um, and, and it's a national relevant person.

If you're doing drive time in like Denver, and you throw out like Bo Nix is like, you know, and a top 3 quarterback, It might make its way into our slack, but we probably aren't gonna cover it.

So it's really who you are, how new is it, and do we think you're, you have some, are you gonna live and die by this take, or you're just kind of throwing it out there, you know.

Interesting, OK.

Interesting.

I, I, you know, I mean, the local guys, I feel like they're saying crazy stuff all the time because they're on the air so much and it's localized national guys.

Yeah, I mean, I don't know, I It's, the issue is that this is really, I think, Really exploded, I would say in the last.

Maybe 2 to 3 years where it doesn't even matter what you say.

Just say the craziest thing so people pick you up.

I mean, it's always been that way to an extent, but I think now where everything is podcasts, And You know , there's genuine stuff that happens on podcasts where someone tends, tells a really good story and, you know, I'm talking about just the, you could, you almost know.

You could, you almost know when someone's saying something they don't believe and why they're saying it.

And that's what I hate when that stuff gets picked up, but I've lost that fight , I think, cause everyone sort of picks up the most outlandish.

Nut shit, bat shit, crazy stuff.

I, I think there's probably some, and, and I, you know, I've seen you kind of, uh, throw some shade on them that we, we left behind the goalie either because we think they're being sincere or we think it's newsworthy or it's just a hot thing right now.

It's, it's something that's happening right now, but we do have like a team that has really constructive conversations and we, we try to be discerning.

And we, I, I will say that we don't throw stuff up and I'd say every day the kind of core group of editors, we have two or three conversations about what do we think about this, um.

And like, just last week, someone we know made some comments about JD Vance that have been picked because he was at the opening ceremony.

And we're like, whoa, I didn't see this comment this person made.

And we said, OK, you know, should we pick it up?

And we're like, you know, it's, it's a few days old at this point.

Um, It was said on this platform, which isn't very mainstream, and we, we just said like we're gonna, you know, this one has lost the, the bar of relevancy to, to make the site at this point.

So it was a sports media person who made comments about JD Vance.

Yeah.

Oh, see, I don't even know this story.

See, I'm glad you didn't pick that up because I didn't even know it.

I'm glad I don't know it.

Like, I'd rather be in the dark.

Um, I mean, listen, that's actually legit.

I mean, if someone, if a sports media person is saying, saying about JD Vance and it's, I, I, it's a somewhat.

If it's a take that has some merit to it, I, I'm, I wish I could come up with an, I, I'm more about like the ridi the ridiculous sports take that you know, the person doesn't believe.

Those are the ones I wish, not just you, I'm saying everybody cause I do it too.

Like, listen, there's times I'll be the first to admit, I gotta write a column, there's nothing going on.

Someone says something stupid, it's a layup, you could, but within reason, you know what I mean?

Like, I feel like sometimes, I feel like it's gotten more out of control.

That's.

What I would say is, is that what I, what I mean is the, the business of let me say something I don't believe that's ridiculous, so I get picked up across the internet.

That's what I feel like has gotten out of control.

Yeah, I mean, if, if you, I mean, TikTok, uh, has made this like terrible.

I, I, I feel like TikTok, you have people who are like 22.

20, maybe not even 20, so they've never even seen certain people play right their accounts like 8 months old and you know they're, they're throwing out these like insane takes and um you know that that's where I see it the worst, not to be like a full boomer, but I think I'm, I'm at that stage.

But I agree, you know, like the, the, the bigger social media gets, the more platforms, the more.

Um, authority and expertise and research is, is not really significant to those platforms and those algorithms.

You're just getting some like terrible takes.

Um, I, I saw something a month ago, uh, where someone had a TikTok and Instagram video going off on this Washington Post article, and I was like, whoa, I need to check out this Washington Post article because this woman is just teeing off on it.

And what I found is like someone said, did you read the article in the comments?

And she said, No, I didn't.

I don't, I won't give them a click.

The article was actually the opposite of what she thought it was, and she had like over like a half a million views about this article that she, she admitted that she didn't read, and you know, like she'll cash her check from TikTok though.

Yeah, absolutely.

Um, tell me.

I would love for you to pull back the curtain a little bit and tell me which sports media people.

Move the needle the most in terms of traffic and clicks.

Oh.

That's a good one, Scott Van Pelt.

Uh, Dave Portnoy can move the needle from time to time.

Um, Tony Romo, if you're an NFL Aboother, Joe Buck, Beekman, Collinsworth, Tario, they move the needle.

So when one of those guys is making news, whether it's a contract, whether they're having a rough patch announcing, whether there's some question of where they're gonna be next, or, you know, they're making headlines for stuff off the field.

The a boost for the, for the NFL, uh, really do move the needle.

We have seen, so we almost like it when there's news with those guys, but we don't force it.

Um, outside of that, we, we found college football is, is moving the needle, whether it's Herb Street, Joel Klatt, um, you know, Paul Finebaum, um, you know, those, those guys tend to move the needle a good deal.

This is why we're all sad now that football is over.

Yeah, I mean, for, for, for, for many reasons, yes.

And in terms of traffic is, you know, we live in this time now where there's such a move to audio video.

But your site, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but just as an observer, I, your site to me still seems like a site for the written word that is red and we're in this time where like it's audio and video.

Do you guys have to sort of try to keep up with the times, change, not, you don't wanna change too much because you, you know, you do have this big core audience.

Where do you stand on what sports media consumption is like these days?

Yeah, I mean, a lot of consumption is moving to not just video and audio, but vertical video.

So Instagram reels, YouTube short.

And TikTok.

So having someone who can take your existing video and getting it into those vertical clips, that's huge.

So we're, we're prioritizing that .

We have, uh, we've been putting out more of that type of content.

We're talking to a possible sponsor, um, you know, our written stuff does well.

It's performing well.

Uh, we, you know, to the site every month, we get about 4 or 5 million people.

Um, so it's a healthy audience, but yeah, it's kind of concerning to see.

That people's relationships with just like reading an article, especially now with these AI recaps, um, you know, which basically take your article and summarize it so they don't have to go to your site, uh, we, we do have almost about 40,000 people who type in awful announcing.

com a day.

Wow.

Like that's, you know, that, that's what people used to do, you know, we used to go to like 5 websites a day for you, you probably had a Yankee site you went to.

You would go to sport, you know, like there were, there were, everyone used to have 3 to 5 sites that were like, well, I gotta see what's going on here.

And so for a certain amount of people we're still a site that people do that for.

So, but you're right, like audio and video are things that keep me up at night that we need to do better on because that's where more of people's attention is going, and we gotta be bigger there.

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If I asked you what was your most read post in 2025, would you know it off the top of your head?

Oh man.

I don't, I don't know off the top of my head, but it's, it's funny you ask that.

Sometimes it'll be like a really big piece of journalism .

Like if you remember, I think it was 2024, we broke the story that Kevin Brown was suspended by the Orioles.

That got a ton of traffic.

But then, like, you know, a few weeks later, it could be like someone farted on TV.

Um, and like that could get the same amount of traffic that we just found the video of someone farting on TV, um, so I will, uh, I'll follow up with you, but it, it, you know, I know like you asked me about who moves the needle the most for you and what are our most read things, and I should know those things, but it almost takes like the fun and the kind of editorial, um.

Judgment out of it to just go all in on chasing the page, right, right.

Well, I, because I do, well, 100% right.

I know for me too, when I write a column or post something or even a podcast.

And it wasn't one that I was expecting to maybe go crazy and then it goes crazy.

That's always sort of like the best feeling.

Like you said, I know if I have Charles Barkley on, I know I'm gonna get some good numbers.

But it's when you have someone on, you may not think and then it's something pops .

That, that is always sort of the cool thing about this now.

Yeah, I, there are so many things like our, our podcast and, um, you know, YouTube channel, we have two shows.

We find like when we talk about like Ryan Ruscillo, Dan Le Batard, uh, people from like the Meadowlark and the Ringer world, um, if there's some type of conversation or guests from those worlds, people watch those more, but it might not translate on on-site traffic.

And my theory is that like people are looking.

To find them on YouTube.

Like, I wanna watch Ryan Ruscillo on YouTube.

I wanna watch, uh, Big Cat on YouTube.

And so we moved off to Netflix.

And then they see a clip of we're talking about Ryan Ruscillo's move, um, you know, from the ringer to, uh, barstool, and then they go all.

Watch that.

So it, it, it's very odd if you look at our most watched videos.

It's, it's hard to predict.

And I know you're playing this game too, and sometimes it's we can be very surprised.

It used to be a lot easier to predict.

Now I feel like it's almost impossible to predict.

Um, I hope I move the needle for you.

I won't bring it.

Are you aware that you have your own Reddit channel now?

I am aware.

I've discussed it here a couple of times.

I, I was not aware and then Richard Deutsch told me about it.

So, I am aware it's relatively new, so it's a, you know, cool thing as long as, you know, when I first heard about it, I'm like, I'm not even gonna look at this because I know people on Reddit are usually animals, but everyone there has been super nice so far.

So, so far so good with that.

So yeah, that's a cool thing.

Um, it is congrats.

Like those people went out of their way to come create a place to talk positively about you.

Like if your parents or if your family watches this podcast, I want them to know Jimmy having his own Reddit is a significant thing, and you should be proud of him.

Yeah, it's cool.

It's cool.

I, I, I, I just listen.

I, what I want, I want people to that, that sort of goes back to what I said before.

I want people to enjoy the podcast and I could get up here right now and do a rant.

I know that.

People will pick up.

But if it's not real, it's, uh, you know, and I don't wanna play that game either, but, um, we went over that already.

So let me, I wanna transition to this a little bit.

You know, in, in sort of the sports media world.

I, I, I, I think every single person in sports media reads awful announcing, follows awful announcing, goes by everything awful announcing says.

But I'm curious if you feel like awful announcing gets the respect sort of within the industry.

You know, we know who covers sports media.

John Oran, Andrew Marshian, Richard Deit.

Do you feel like awful announcing is in that crew from a respectability standpoint, not with readers, but within the industry.

Oh no, no, no, and part of that is our own fault.

It's because we ran, we run our DM mouths, you know, someone watches, someone, one of our guys just doesn't like an announcer or doesn't like the way certain channel broadcasts the sport.

But other people feel that, like the fans feel it, and they'll write, you know, so and so does terrible broadcasting this event, or so and so whatever, and people are like, yeah, and then that network is just like, You know, screw these guys, uh, so, you know, I, I understand why that is, um, but I, I think we, we write a lot of positive things too, you know, um, someone at ESPN shot me a text last week and said, hey, this guy that you sometimes cover negatively, I was really happy to see this positive.

I, I've had PR people go, you guys call, call your balls and strikes, but there's, there's some of each , and we appreciate it, but Um, you know, I have a lot of respect for those reporters that you, you mentioned, and we're doing like 30 posts a day, and it's like we're gonna piss off 5 to 10 people each day, and so it's gonna, it's just gonna be hard for us to kind of get that respect, you know.

It's funny to hear that because I, I did, there's a very, very, there's a popular NFL announcer who I have written.

About glowingly, constantly, and One time I said one comment that really wasn't even targeted directly at him, and then I get the DM like I, and it's like 99% of what I say is positive, I don't hear a word.

You never hear a word when he writes, I mean, I, I like that story that someone reached out when you wrote something positive, cause I never hear anything when I write something positive, only negative, which just shows the egos we all have.

Um.

So you don't feel.

Respected within the, it's interesting because everyone, like, you're like the awful announcing sort of like the, the sports bible of sports media in terms of trying to find out what's going on with who.

Um, So, but I'm talking about even, not broadcasters, but executives at places.

Let's say, well, let me do it this way.

Let's take the big 4.

Let's take CBS, NBC, Fox, ESPN .

Out of those 4, How many would you say you have a good relationship and how many would you say you don't have a good relationship with?

I think we have a neutral to positive relationship with 3 of those 4 places.

OK.

And, and, and I think part of it is like when you have a, if you have a beef or you have whatever, I've been like this way for a while and my staff is, you can call me, email me, or message me like I'm here .

I'm, I, I have this saying I say where like in high school or junior, I remember when people used to like butt heads.

And then they say we're gonna go fight and then you gotta go to the park to fight, but usually one kid chickens out.

I, I, I go to the park when I'm summoned to the park.

I go to the park and I take whatever comes.

So 33 of the 4, I think we have a very constructive, uh, relationship, and, and, you know, there's one network.

Sometimes we struggle to find common ground.

I would, can you say that network.

We've been working, we've been working to have a more positive relationship, and there's, there's one individual there who's really gone out of their way.

I think if you talk to people in the industry, I think a lot of people may share similar, similar, I was gonna say I, I wonder if it's.

I, I wonder if I can pinpoint what it is, but we won't do that on the air, um, but I have a feeling, I, I think I might be able to.

I, I think you, I think you can probably nail it in one guess, um.

Yeah, We'll see.

Um, tell me, what, if you wanna give me the specifics, I'd love the specifics.

If you wanna just give me the generality, you can.

What has been the most mad someone in sports media has been at you or the site?

Most mad, OK, that Kevin Brown story about him being suspended by the Orioles.

The Angelo's family sent some henchman stooge to just berate me for hour, for a long time.

And when you say sent, what do you mean email or call, call email.

I am still like I've never been talked to that way by, by anyone, and they sold the Orioles, so I felt like I won on that one.

Um, there was an incident at Bleacher Report where an executive at Bleacher Report made fun of Barstool and incurred Dave Portnoy's wrath, and that PR person representing that executive was, was very, uh, Unpleasant.

Um, oh wait, the person at Bleacher who ripped Portnoy, where did they do that?

Like someone went to a conference.

Oh, OK, so that, OK, and they didn't think anyone would, would pay attention to the things, and it's like, well, I'm here.

I said, I, I watched the stream, and, you know, and now Dave Portnoy is just like doing his thing, uh, which, you know, he doesn't do as much these days, you know, since getting that dog.

Uh, there, there, there's less like beast out there for him, but, um, you know, ESPN has been pissed a few times about things we've written, um, Fox, like I'm, I'm trying to think of other, oh, you know, you, you commented on this a while ago when we wrote about some friction with Joe Buck and Troy Aiken coming to ESPN not getting along with the production crew.

Um, that one ruffled some feathers, and, and I get it.

It's they're a booth, and some people, the production crew are just not vibing with Aikman and Buck.

I think most of that's water under the bridge, but, um, you, you know, you always wanna protect your stars.

So whenever we get close to a star, and we have something that isn't out yet, that's when you really get the pushback.

I vaguely remember that story now.

It was it, it was someone in the crew who, who said Troy doesn't.

It's really more about Troy, right?

If I remember correctly.

Yeah, I, the, the gist of what we had was that, you know, They hadn't gelled with the crew.

The crew felt a little disconnected, um, and, and they wanted, they, they were used to having more of a relationship with the a booth, and there were some people who shared some stuff, um.

And you know, you don't want that story getting out, you know, so full-court press, full-court press throwing flags, and, you know , you, you fight that fight with PR and it happens with every network when we have something kind of interesting and new.

Do you, do you hear often from broadcasters when you point out a blunder or a mistake or A bad job that they do.

Yeah, you know, so, so sometimes we hear people go like, you know what, I, uh, I screwed up, it was bad, um, all, all, you know, we do hear people who like the site and like, yeah.

I knew it was a matter of time until I made an awful analogy, not my best moment, and I go, Hey, thanks.

And we do hear from people.

We one time we said this guy screwed up.

It was the end of the game.

It was a buzzer beater, and someone said, Oh, it swishes in.

And the thing is it airballed.

And then the guy messaged me, You need to look into where this college has moved the announcer seats.

You don't.

You have to be at mid.

They were used to be at midcourt, and they had put them up like 20 rows.

And they couldn't, they couldn't see it from their new vantage point as like announcers.

So, well, that guy's a jerk because that guy should say, oh my God, this was a funny mistake.

Like, what if you're, if you're saying something swish that's an air ball.

That's a funny mistake.

You just say, God, who knows what, you know, the, the famous one there is, um, the best one of that is there was a, it's Jay Feely from CBS Sports Network where he said the field goal was good and it was like 80 yards wide, right.

That was a great one.

But those I feel like are harmless.

So like, I don't know why people would get so banana shape.

Here's the thing, every broadcaster is going to make a mistake.

So If you're gonna make a mistake and it's that outlandish and ridiculous, I think people just laugh at it for a day and then brush it off.

I would, you know, to get all worked up over that is, is, yeah, I mean, there are some people in this industry, and I don't want to name names that take criticism super seriously, and some people don't give a shit at all.

And, and I would say when you started like, You know, you, you and me are OGs in this, we go back.

Joe Buck back in the day was like the no fun, didn't have a good relationship with social media and bloggers, and people used to just make fun of Joe Buck.

Somewhere, you know, 89 years ago, he started doing some stuff with uh Barstool.

He went on Brockmire.

Now he's on Twitter, and he just, everything just falls right off of him.

He doesn't give a shit.

And I love that.

I love that transition for Joe Buck, and people love him more.

There are some people that will say something, people will criticize them, and then they'll go on another podcast and yell at the criticism and dig the hole deeper and deeper, and it's like, it's not that serious.

There's so many people out there.

You talk so much for your job.

There's gonna be these things, and it's just like the cost of doing business like.

It's not a big deal.

Like, just laugh with it, move on.

Like you do not have to just rubberneck this stuff.

It's OK.

Like this is what you do for a living.

It's all good.

Yeah, I agree.

Do you, you have, um, You get, do you have a post your site did that you regret?

Oh, I'm sure where you were wrong or, you know , some facts come out after the fact or something like that.

You had egg on your face.

Yeah, you know what, uh, a few years ago we had heard there, there was this thing for, for Joe Buck and Troy Aikman to go from Fox to ESPN.

Fox got a college football game.

It was rumored that they were gonna get one game from ESPN's inventory, a Big 10 game.

And I had it from a solid source that it was gonna be like Penn State versus like Ohio State, or it was gonna be a good game.

And we, we kind of went with it, and I remember like someone at Fox was like, that's, or, you know, someone from ESPN or Fox is like, that's not the game.

So, We, we've had a couple of misses or we've had a few things that like later I've been, we've decided is in poor taste.

We had a, a former writer, someone had like a stroke pregame, like a seizure while doing the pregame, like, you know, tonight the lineup is, and we just were like that's a post, and then like later people was like, I don't wanna see this freaking guy like having a seizure and a stroke, and I'm like, oh my God, you know what, like.

Big mess, and we deleted it and we apologized, and I did a, a big apology, and people were like, thank you for apologizing, like, that's, that's all we needed here.

And I, I hate when people can't apologize, like, I don't even remember that one.

I, because I deleted it within, it was 6 minutes.

Like I, so I got a text.

I got like a couple messages within 1 minute, and I was like, I need to go extinguish a fire.

I ran to my computer, you know, delete , delete, delete, apologize, and it goes away, and these things go away.

How, how often would you say you have a fire to put out?

We have small kitchen fires probably twice a month, and sometimes uh when we need to use the fire hydrant, maybe once or twice a year, I would say.

OK.

Yeah, I, I, I mean, I've experienced that too, where you post something or you write something and then You don't know the full story and you , you feel like you feel terrible and you gotta clean it up.

I mean, thank God I, you know, few and far between, but it is a bad feeling.

If it's, listen, the thing with, um, you got the college football game wrong that Fox was getting from ESPN.

I mean, that's nothing.

What you don't want to do is obviously affect someone's career.

I mean, you guys have the power to affect people's career, um, Do you, you know, do you, as the owner, let your writers know, hey, you know, we have a lot of power here, we can make or break someone.

Let's, you know, use our judgment to the best we can, or is it, because I get both sides of it.

I get where you wanna let it fly, post whatever, you wanna be quick, you wanna be timely, you wanna get the page views.

And then, so then you know, this guy, you know, did he deserve this?

I mean, those are the toughest situations.

Jimmy, I'll tell you the, the toughest situation for me is that we write about something that did affect someone's career, where they did get fired for something they did, and 2 or 3 years later, they call me .

I have a call, I think tomorrow or, uh, yeah, tomorrow.

Someone did something, made a lot of news.

The person lost their job, and deservedly so.

This person's now looking to move on.

You Google their name off on out.

Sorry about this.

It's the 2nd or 3rd link, and they want that article deleted or removed from Google, and we do hold a lot of power.

So what, you know, what do you do in these kind of scenarios, um, cause, cause I don't, you know, I know that, you know, I, I don't know how other outlets handle this, where, you know, are they a better person?

Did they learn their lesson, you know, I don't like deleting articles.

Can we Do something to, you know, like it, it, it's a tough conversation, but I, we do take those things seriously, and it usually goes through 2 or 3 people, and we, we have the group that we have now usually has a really good discussion on when anything is high stakes and, and sensitive, there, there's a conversation usually with at least 3 people, usually 5 or 6 .

That's a, you know, I would understand why that person wouldn't want to have their name attached negatively to awful announcing because of the power you have in the industry, but I would assume if they did, like, let's say, I don't know if this is, I'm, I don't want to put you in an awkward spot, but I'm just using this as an example.

Let's say it was like the Tom Brenneman deal.

There's probably 8 million articles about what Tom Brenneman did.

So like, removing yours, what is that gonna do?

That's what I've told some people.

It's like, OK, we're number 4 on the list, but there's 2368, like, you know, like, you know, this is, this is tough, um, so, but there's other places where it's a more niche name, you know, like if you're a beat writer and, you know, you, you did something insane criminally or whatever, and maybe that only got picked up in like 4 or 5 places, so you can, you can, um, work on that list, you know, over time.

Do you guys, I, I, I know you guys will do things like, I think you did something recently, um, But you might do like, you know, who should replace this person or 5 announcers we'd like to see do this.

You get good numbers for those or is every, or is it all, I mean, if you just did news, that's really what's gonna move the needle more than anything at all times.

Uh, those lists usually do do well, especially if people vote on them, but some of the lists don't do well if, if, if people just aren't into it, if it's kind of vague.

So we do our announcer rankings.

We do, um, you know, we're gonna do one, I think this week where it's gonna be like, what event that has been with the network for a long time would you like to see move?

So it could be Fox in the World Series, Fox in the World Cup, the NCAA tournament, the Olympics with NBC.

Um, so those generally do well.

Every once in a while, one will miss if it's too niche.

Um, but we definitely hear from, from a lot of people when they don't, they're, that we did a podcast player list, like who are the biggest players in podcasts, and it could be podcasters or agencies or whatever.

And every year I like block out my next day from when that list cuts out because people just call me and they're like, do you know the numbers my podcast does?

or that's unbelievable.

Do you know how big our network is?

You tried booking one of our guys to be on your podcast, and I just like.

Just spend, spend the day kind of dealing with disgruntled people when some of these lists come out.

That's, that's wild.

I mean, even for me to hear that, that's wild because I've dealt with all these people, it's kinda Worked up over a list.

Crazy.

You know, I, to wrap it up here, I had asked if you felt respected within the sports media industry, with, within the, with the people of the industry, not fans or readers.

And you said you didn't.

Do you wanna be?

Uh, yeah, I mean, who, who doesn't like being respected, but at the same time, like, we're not gonna just Editorily rub people on the head and rub their belly and tell everyone they're doing a good job.

Um, I will share that someone was working on a feature about us in a, in a major publication, and I was like, that's nice, something my mom can read and send to her friends and people on the staff, and something got kinda screwed up there, because if I shared more, I think you could probably figure out exactly who this was and what publication.

Um, so I, I thought that would have been the type of accreditation that would, would have been nice.

I do feel some respect from, from a good amount of people.

But I think at the end of the day, we're outside of the industry, and everyone's in broadcasting, and they've, you know, and these are these guys who largely work outside of the industry.

And we just talk a lot, and, you know, from time to time, people think we're, we're being a little bit uh overzealous in our commentary, and it doesn't sit well with everyone, but a lot of people like it.

If you look at who subscribes to our newsletter, I wouldn't name names, but it's a lot of the executives.

Across the company, so there, there is some respect there, but at this, at the same time, like, I, you know, it, it's half and half, you know, um, it, it, it's , you know, these guys do an OK job, but God, sometimes they really won't shut, shut up when they need to, and, um, you know, I'll take it.

The site is here because we are not in the industry and we have opinions that a lot of people share sometimes.

Well, I appreciate you coming on.

I know, I'm sure anyone listening to this podcast reads your site.

So, now I have to say too, on a personal note, I, I gotta thank you guys because you guys always do a good job of picking up my podcast and proper credit and doing the quotes the right way.

So now, how, how does this work for you now?

Is awful announcing gonna pick this podcast up and then quote the owner of the site?

How does that work for you?

You know, like many things, I'll, I'll leave it to the, to the group and, um, yeah, we have a good staff, Brendan, Brandon, Drew, Matt, um, Sam, Sean, um, and I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll leave it to them and we'll have a conversation about it.

Uh, if they'll probably make fun of me, they'll probably make fun of me because I, I rigged up this whole background because I have 4 meetings this week and I did not have a proper background.

Uh, I have 4 important meetings, and this was Without my wife's help, this is what I've, I've put together.

So I feel that's a good, that's a great background, a little mocken jersey there, Varsity Blues by Vander excellent, yes, to raise money, rest in peace.

So, um, I'll let them make fun of me and, and give you all of your flowers for having me on.

Well, I appreciate you coming on and, and pulling back the curtain.

Like I said, everyone in this industry reads you guys.

So, um, maybe they'll learn a little something here and we'll, you know, maybe we'll.

Get that respect for lawful announcing.

And, again, do, do you feel you get the respect you deserve, Jimmy?

Let me ask you that.

I do.

Um, I, I, you know, it's funny, I, I do.

I, I didn't realize it, really .

I, it, it's other people telling me, oh, my bosses listened to what you say, or, you know, I, people talk about you and, you know, if your opinions, blah, blah.

It's, uh, that's how I, I, I hear it from other people, um.

Which in a way, I, I, I mean, I like and I don't like because sometimes I just want to give my opinion without Having it set off some sort of thing, but, you know, it is what it is.

It's fine.

It's, you know.

Well, I, I think you deserve that respect, and you've been doing this like so long.

You got in this before me, and I think Sports Illustrated, it has changed a ton, uh, multiple owners, like a million different things, and that's where it's tough for me when Sports Illustrated is going through stuff and I can't say what I want to say.

That's the toughest part.

Well, you can always, you can always leak it to us and we'll, we'll keep it on the down low, but I, I think like you're one of very few people who have had this type of tenure at Sports Illustrated and it's still going and it's still relevant and, and, you know, doing what they were doing.

So like respect, you haven't, I appreciate that.

I appreciate that.

Thank you.

All right, Ben Koo, owner of Awful announcing, I know you guys read it.

I don't need to plug it, but obviously, uh.

If it's a sports media podcast, you know, awful announcing already.

So I appreciate you coming on and, uh, be well.

Good luck with everything in the non-football days here.

All right, thank you so much for having me on.

Take care.