Following the departure of Colin Cowherd to Fox Sports, ESPN Radio is moving the Dan Le Batard Show from afternoons to the vacant 10am-1pm slot starting Tuesday, September 8.
Le Batard and co-host on “Stugotz” Weiner will continue to do a one hour local show for Entercom’s “790 The Ticket” WAXY, but that will move to the 9:00 hour. Television simulcast of the show will be live on ESPNU and then replayed at 1:00pm on Fusion, which had been carrying the afternoon show live.
No replacement for the 4-7pm show has been named yet.
On Tuesday, Sept. 8, The Dan Le Batard Show will move to 10 a.m. ET – its new time on ESPN Radio. The three-hour national show will continue to be co-hosted by Le Batard and Jon “Stugotz” Weiner and will remain based in Miami. The one-hour local show will now be broadcast from 9-10 a.m. in Miami.
Le Batard will continue to offer provocative opinion and conversation to ESPN Radio’s national audience through a lineup of well-known guests, humor and reaction to the day’s news. The show will also continue to feature a lineup of regular contributors including John Amaechi, Greg Cote, Amin El Hassan, Sarah Spain and Pablo Torre.
“We continue to be flattered and flabbergasted by the amount of unrelenting support ESPN gives our absurd little circus,” said Le Batard. “We can’t believe that even more of ‘Sports America’ will now be able to laugh, think and call us fat. We look forward to making fun of the powerful, the cliché and ourselves. We are going to enjoy ourselves daily in a way that we hope people find contagious and try not to notice that this time slot gives us more markets than ever in which we can be wrong. We’re excited to bring our Miami flavor to an even broader audience. And we can’t wait to unleash the mighty Stugotz like a hot-take-snorting rodeo bull upon an unsuspecting country. This is going to be fun.”
Traug Keller, ESPN senior vice president, production business divisions, added “Dan and Stugotz have cultivated a passionate following who expect cutting-edge and entertaining sports talk radio. They will not be disappointed with the time change and a new audience will now have the opportunity to experience this unique blend of make-you-think commentary and humor.”
The three-hour national show will be heard on ESPN Radio, espnradio.com, the ESPN app and SiriusXM Channel 80. ESPNU will simulcast the show. FUSION will continue to televise the show in its entirety, tape delayed at 1 p.m.
Le Batard will continue to host ESPN’s Highly Questionable weekday afternoons at 4:30 p.m., along with his father Gonzalo “Papi” Le Batard and Bomani Jones.
In 2013, Le Batard brought his local radio show – heard on The Ticket in Miami since 2004 – to ESPN Radio’s national audience from 4 – 7 p.m. Le Batard joined ESPN The Magazine’s staff as a contributor in February 1998.
Le Batard continues as a columnist at the Miami Herald, where he has been since 1990. His work also appears regularly on ESPN.com. An accomplished writer, he has won several Associated Press Sports Editor (APSE) awards. Le Batard also has written for numerous national publications, including Maxim and Cosmopolitan. A 1990 graduate of the University of Miami, Le Batard received a bachelor of arts degree in journalism and politics.
Jon “Stugotz” Weiner has served as co-host of The Dan Le Batard Show since 2004. A sports broadcasting veteran of more than 15 years, Stugotz provides his own passionate takes on the sports news of the day, often the opposite of Le Batard’s opinion, and is known for his self-deprecating humor. Stugotz received his bachelor’s degree in English and communications from Clark University in 1995.
Given reports of recent belt-tightening at ESPN, I wouldn’t be surprised if Dan LeBetard’s show eventually runs four hours (10 A.,M.-2 P.M. ET), with Ryen Rusillo also expanding by an hour (2-6 P.m. ET), with George Sedano’s show doubling in length from two to four hours (with Sedano going 6-10 P.M. ET) and Freddie Coleman adding an hour, so he would run from 10 P.M. to 2 A.M. ET.
This way, ESPN Radio eliminates a full shift and saves money.