Once upon a time, not too long ago, Katie Nolan was the person sports networks brought in to experiment.
Whether scraping from the early days of social media for Garbage Time at Fox or bringing late-night to sports streaming with Always Late on ESPN+ or doing a Tony Kornheiser rendition in the Friday Night Baseball booth for Apple TV+, Nolan was a go-to.
Now, after departing ESPN and launching a podcast at SiriusXM, she has thoughts on the risk-averse nature of sports programming by her former employers, particularly in the wake of a buzzy new deal between Fox Sports and Barstool that will see Dave Portnoy become a face of the network’s college football coverage.
She talked through those thoughts on Thursday in an episode of her podcast, Casuals.
Nolan explained that growing up, she did not consume sports like many men she has worked with in adulthood because she felt sports content “wasn’t really speaking to me.” While she helped change that a bit last decade with her work, Nolan worries the business is slipping back to that place.
“It … was catered to an audience that didn’t really even fathom I might be watching. A little girl. They didn’t think about me at all. And that had changed a little in semi-recent years,” said Nolan. “I would say the John Skipper era at ESPN is when they started to say, ‘Hey, we’ve got a whole network here. Let’s fill it with different stuff for different people. Let’s try some stuff that’s different, so that every show isn’t exactly the same.’ And it seems like that’s done now.
“We’re back to, ESPN makes a show and Fox makes that show at home. Like it’s a knockoff. Which, I get it. If there’s a formula and it’s working and it’s getting views, the eyeballs are what you need. Blah blah blah, don’t tell me I don’t understand. Of course, I understand. I get it. But you have an opportunity to do more. And I think where sports TV bums me out is even when they try to take a swing and do something a little bit different, when there’s pushback, they sort of immediately fold and default to what they know.”
Some might see the Fox-Barstool deal as a “swing.” From a business and content distribution standpoint, it is. Fox Sports is following the lead of ESPN by licensing popular content from other production companies to attract a new audience.
But from a tone and branding standpoint, Nolan believes Barstool is actually quite safe and comfortable for audiences and programming heads. She wonders if this means big sports media companies are done taking chances on genuinely innovative formats and new viewpoints.
“That’s what the game is supposed to be. That’s what making entertainment television is supposed to be,” Nolan argued. “You’re supposed to try stuff that you believe in, that you think is a good idea. Maybe people don’t like it, fine. But you’re not supposed to immediately go, ‘You like this, here is this-lite.’ Or, ‘Here is this, just with a different-same guy.’ So that just bums me out.”
Nolan was also careful not to make it seem as if Portnoy or Pat McAfee, who has an almost identical deal with ESPN, are not popular or talented.
The problem, as Nolan sees it, is that they and their imitators are among the few people getting oxygen in the modern sports media environment.
“You can even love this. You can love Dave Portnoy. You can love Pat McAfee. These guys can be for you,” she explained. “I’m not even saying that you shouldn’t exist. I acknowledge that that audience exists, I acknowledge that it’s the one that sports often caters to. Again, I’m not dumb. I just, I also exist. And it’s just strange to me how mad the other audience gets when you’re like, ‘Could we have half an hour for our little show? You might not like this, guys. But that’s OK. We don’t like your thing.'”
It would not be hard to make a case that the most daring or unusual content in sports media has declined in recent years. HBO canceled Real Sports in 2023, followed by the Bob Costas and Bomani Jones-hosted shows it produced. Creators like Bill Simmons and Dan Le Batard had to leave ESPN to develop networks that were outside the mainstream media box. The early days of FS1, featuring talent like Nolan and Regis Philbin, or Jay Onrait and Dan O’Toole, are over.
Still, innovation is happening. Pablo Torre is revolutionizing investigative sports journalism, with Nolan as a key contributor. New stars on new platforms are dipping their toes into sports content, away from the network system. There is more women’s sports programming, for example, than ever before.
The rest of the 2020s will also see new partners for the NBA, NFL, and MLB try to make an imprint on how we watch sports. Streamers are just getting started.
There may be some reason for optimism, but having lived the rollercoaster of what can happen when even the best-laid plans get stomped upon by corporate scaredy-cats, Nolan is short on hope.
“I just wish sports was doing a better job of programming their networks to bring more people in and share sports with more people,” she said. “And talk about sports in different ways. And try different things. But that’s hard, so let’s just make the thing we know how to make. So, cool. Congrats.”