ESPN plans odd 'The Sports Reporters' revival

Whenever there’s discussion about past ESPN shows that people miss, The Sports Reporters comes up. That show aired on ESPN every Sunday from 1988 to May 2017. It was hosted by Gary Thorne (for a short time in 1988), Dick Schaap (1988-2001), John Saunders (2001 after Schaap’s death through 2016), and Mike Lupica (2016-17 after Saunders’ passing).

The Sports Reporters helped boost the stardom of many figures initially known for print journalism work, including Michael Wilbon, Mitch Albom, John Feinstein, Bob Ryan, William C. Rhoden, Ralph Wiley, and a lot more. (Wilbon’s Pardon The Interruption co-host Tony Kornheiser was often seen there too, but was not a regular panelist.) And it’s fondly remembered by many. And John Ourand of Puck broke news Monday that the show is set for some level of revival, and that a first episode hosted by Dick Schaap’s son and famed ESPN journalist Jeremy Schaap is already recorded. However, Ourand noted that the revival is mostly targeted for…ESPN’s YouTube channel?

Here’s how Ourand spelled that out in his The Varsity newsletter at Puck (with that newsletter also featuring significant discussion of the Venu Sports legal developments, Apple and NFL Sunday Ticket, and more):

I’m hearing rumblings that ESPN is going to resuscitate The Sports Reporters, the sports talk show that turned ink-stained wretches like Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon into bona fide TV stars. ESPN had hoped to have an episode ready within the next few weeks, hosted by Jeremy Schaap and featuring NFL play-by-play announcers, like Joe Buck and Al Michaels.

There’s a lot that’s still in the air with this—nothing has been confirmed. The show won’t have a regular daily or weekly time slot, I’m told. But it will be produced under The Sports Reporters banner for ESPN’s YouTube channel, with various segments made available via linear, digital, and social. Any plan that involves such a popular brand is certain to garner some positive press.

While there absolutely will be people interested in anything with the The Sports Reporters brand, the apparent choice to make this revival primarily focused on YouTube is interesting. YouTube has regularly been cited for its younger audiences relative to linear TV, with ESPN and Pat McAfee regularly using that in particular to defend The Pat McAfee Show ‘s limited linear ratings.

Meanwhile, much of the appeal for the The Sports Reporters brand would seem to be from an older audience that remembers past incarnations of it. And that audience seems to show up more on linear TV than YouTube. And it’s not like ESPN has extremely limited linear airtime across their multiplicity of channels.

Thus, while the mention of a role for linear here is notable, it’s curious that that’s not more of an apparent focus. And it’s worth noting that some past ESPN attempts to work beloved brands into other brands did not end well (hello, the Norby Williamson -promoted “ expansion ” of Outside The Lines as a SportsCenter segment). However, The Sports Reporters did already return on a different platform with some success, as a podcast (hosted by Lupica and Albom on a rotating basis, produced by Compass Media Networks) from September 2017-March 2022. So perhaps there will be some audience for a YouTube version of it. And Outside The Lines came back as mostly a YouTube show (with similar segments for other platforms) earlier this year .

The other unusual thing here is the description Ourand provides of that first episode, especially with it “featuring NFL play-by-play announcers, like Joe Buck and Al Michaels.” The whole point of the initial The Sports Reporters was that it had an ESPN host moderating (usually-outside) reporters (who usually, but not always, were mostly known for print work). This sounds a long way from that.

It’s unclear if there will be any actual reporters beyond host Schaap involved here, or why a Schaap discussion with the likes of Michaels and Buck wouldn’t show up under another ESPN journalism brand (such as the aforementioned OTL , E:60 , or SC Featured ). But we’ll see what the final details wind up being. For the moment, though, this looks like an extremely different version of The Sports Reporters , and it will be interesting to see how much of the old show’s audience it can grab.

[ Puck ; image from the final The Sports Reporters broadcast from 2017, from @arobsz on YouTube ]

The post ESPN is bringing back ‘The Sports Reporters’…for YouTube? appeared first on Awful Announcing .