James Andrew Miller and Conrad Thompson

Sports Media with Richard Deitsch

Audacy

News, Business News, Sports, Sports News

4.3 • 721 Ratings

🗓️ 19 July 2018

⏱️ 89 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Episode 15 of the Sports Media Podcast with Richard Deitsch features two guests: First, a sports media conversation with James Andrew Miller, the best-selling author of books on CAA, ESPN and Saturday Night Live. The second guest is Conrad Thompson, the host of three immensely popular wresting podcasts: Something to Wrestle (with Bruce Pritchard); 83 Weeks (with Eric Bischoff) and What Happened When (with Tony Schiavone) In this podcast, Miller discusses ESPN’s current relationship with the NFL under new president Jimmy Pitaro versus its relationship under former President John Skipper; the role of the ESPYs in the ESPN universe and why criticism might be unfair; whether journalism at ESPN will be supported by Pitaro or whether ESPN reporters should be concerned; the future of Outside The Lines; whether Pitaro would do a content deal with Barstool Sports or a company such as Barstool; the futures of Keith Olbermann and Chris Berman at ESPN; and much more. Thompson discusses the process of how he does each podcast weekly; how the Bischoff podcast came together; how he approaches distribution of each podcast; creating show extensions beyond the podcasts; how he and Pritchard developed the live show business; how that business is now worth six figures for each of them; the potential opportunities for the archives of the podcasts; his relationship with longtime wrestling journalist Dave Meltzer; the return of Hulk Hogan to the WWE; whether Hogan would commit to a weekly podcast; the impact of Ronda Rousey on WWE’s business; what we can expect from Rousey heading forward, and much more. You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher and more. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, everybody. This is Richard Ditch, and welcome to the Sports Media podcast. My producer, as always, is Lou Pellegrino. Two guests this week, two different conversations, but I think you can enjoy it. First up is Jim Miller. And he, of course, the best-selling author of books on ESPN, CAA, and Saturday Night Live. And we go into a number of ESPN-related topics, including where ESPN's journalism is going to be under Jimmy Petaro, as opposed to John Skipper, as well as what is ESPN's relationship with the NFL going to be heading forward.
0:32.3	And that is a very, very big one for ESPN, for Disney, and its business.
0:36.5	After that, it is Conrad Thompson,
0:39.2	who is, if you are a wrestling fan, you know the name. He hosts three of the most popular
0:45.8	wrestling podcast out there, something to wrestle with Bruce Pritchard, 83 weeks with Eric Bischoff,
0:51.8	what happened when with Tony Chivani?
0:59.0	Conrad was on the podcast when I was at Sports Illustrated, and he went through what is a pretty amazing journey from being a mortgage, the person who sells mortgages to people in Huntsville,
1:06.9	Alabama, to now a six-figure business hosting these wrestling podcasts, doing live shows.
1:13.9	And that's what today's episode is about.
1:15.6	I get really deep into one, how the Eric Bischoff podcast came together.
1:19.6	But more than that, how Conrad has extended these podcasts with all these extensions,
1:26.1	from live shows to selling t-shirts to just
1:33.4	how big this business has gotten and I think even Conrad would say it's pretty incredible.
1:39.3	We also talk about Hulk Hogan's return to WWE and Ronda Rousey's success in WWA. So Jim Miller and Conrad Thompson
1:46.5	coming up on the Sports Media with Richard Dutch podcast. All right, and we bring in one of our
1:50.8	favorite guests, James Andrew Miller, the ESPN author, CAA author. He is in Los Angeles now.
1:59.1	Just by the way, just back not too long ago for some SPs post parties.
2:04.2	So he will be sleep deprived, and, you know, he probably will not reveal the bull face names he's been hanging out with.
2:10.3	But we appreciate him joining us on the sports media podcast.
2:13.5	Jim, how are you?
2:14.2	Other than sleep deprived?
2:15.3	Other than sleep deprived, thanks for having me.
	...

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