Welcome to the Sports Media Podcast. I'm your host, Richard Dutch. My producer is Bob Tabador. One guest on this episode. But if we're talking sports media podcast royalty, we're talking

this man, Jimmy Trana, who hosts the SI Media Podcast with Jimmy Trana, a podcast that I was

honored to have started prior to Jimmy Trana, is the guest on this podcast also, of course, writes for SI.com and has for many years.

We have known each other forever, and he's gracious enough to return to this podcast.

Welcome, Jimmy.

How thrilled were you the last two weeks that you no longer worked for the athletic?

I mean, honestly, if we're going to be honest, my social media mentions were so much reduced,

right, compared to if I had worked there, it would have been not, it would have been Rucini

questions nonstop.

Well, I felt bad too, because I saw someone, someone, like, criticized Marchand for not writing about it. Do you know how dumb you have to be to think Andrew Marchand was going to write about Diana Ruscini? You can't, you, I mean, I've always been one who, I know the New York Times covers itself and the Washington Post covers itself. I don't really, I've never sort of believe that's smart. I think ultimately you can't fully cover yourself the way someone from the outside should. And I, as I said on the last podcast, where we did Rusini, the athletic should absolutely be covered in the same way the athletic covers the Mets or the Yankees or the, or the mariners. But yeah, like, I agree with you.

Like, Andrew Martian is not writing a column on Diana Rusini for the athletic. Like, it's just, it's not going to, there's a million reasons why that's not going to happen. If you want to call the athletic writers out on that, I can respect that, but they're not, that's just not going to happen. Right. And I would argue that I think the public is better served if others are covering it,

if others are covering it anyway.

But here, I want to start with the NFL draft, which comes up on Thursday.

Shout out, by the way.

I'm happy to always give a shout out to public relations if they do a good job. Lily Blum of ESPN PR put together a phenomenally long

and comprehensive release on everything that ESPN is doing for the NFL draft. And because

they are doing so much, Jimmy, like this podcast is like, it's like longer than roots, the miniseries

that ran on ABC in the 70s. That's like probably a very outdated reference. But it was a funny joke in 1981. I'm old enough that I got it. You got it. Yeah, I know. So let me break this down for you. So you have the ESPN NFL Network and ABC. There, obviously, the big dogs combining. Interesting enough, NFL Network's been doing

this for 21 years of draft. That's a long time. There's nine platforms, including Disney Plus and Hulu.

And in terms of the main players on the main desks, you have the ABC draft coverage, Kuyper, McFarland, Riddick, Schaefter, Herb Street, Howard, Sab, McGrath, Field Yates, Pth, Thammel, etc. That's sort of college-focused. The NFL network, interestingly enough, even under the ESPN umbrella, still has its guys, Daniel Jeremiah, Charles Davis, Joel Clatt, Rappaport, Kurt Warner, I think in my career. Eisen is the person you're Yeah, Rich Eisen obviously hosting. And then the ESPN version, Greenberg, am I correct? Eisen is the person you're saying. Yeah, Rich Eisen, obviously, hosting.

And then the ESPN version, Greenberg, Reese Davis, I should say hosting ABC, Mike Greenberg

hosting the ESPN one.

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