ESPN's 'More Than $1 Billion' Mistake Is Looking Worse By The Day
ESPN has let a lot of talent leave the company in recent years.
From Colin Cowherd to Skip Bayless to Dan Le Batard to Bill Simmons...the list goes on and on. Of course, ESPN appears to be doing quite well in their absences. The network has hired big-time personalities like Pat McAfee and built shows around Stephen A. Smith, while also bringing on top former coaches and players like Nick Saban, Jason Kelce, Peyton and Eli Manning and more.
But how much of a mistake was it for ESPN to essentially pass on trying to create a robust podcasting network? Guys like Cowherd and Le Batard and Simmons have some of the biggest sports podcasts - and sports podcast networks - in the industry.
One former ESPN star suggested that the company let "more than $1 billion" walk away.
Pablo Torre, who leads one of the most popular sports podcasts going right now in "Pablo Torre Finds Out," admitted that his former company let a lot of money walk away.
"If you think about Zach and Bill Simmons and Ryen Russillo and Dan Le Batard and Colin Cowherd...and throw me in there somewhere in the rotation if you want, but just like down the list, right? So that's Meadowlark (Le Batard's company), The Ringer (Simmons' company), that's The Volume (Cowherd's company), that's some other stuff that's emerging," Torre explained to Semafor.
"If you were to collect all of those guys and just do the math on that. ESPN, legitimately, let over a billion dollars walk out the door. Now, they missed, I would argue, the future of sports podcasting that was already in-house."
He's not wrong about that. Companies have been shelling out hundreds of millions of dollars to acquire the kind of sports podcasting networks that guys like Simmons, Le Batard and Cowherd have built.
ESPN might be doing fine without that, but don't you think they wish they could have kept them?
ESPN's 'More Than $1 Billion' Mistake Is Looking Worse By The Day first appeared on The Spun on Aug 11, 2025
This story was originally reported by The Spun on Aug 11, 2025, where it first appeared.
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