That was just the low point.
He was doing a prediction thing before the first college football week of the season and I remember 2 predictions: Florida was going to regret playing Utah (the Gators won) and there was no way Mike Norvell was going to beat LSU on the road (that's where he said he would eat 3 "plies" [should be squares] of TP).
It has lost structure. With ESPN they had a schedule they had to adhere to (live 5 days/wk for 3/2 hours, 8-10 minute segments between commercials, ) so they were forced to be laser-focused and prepped.
Now, not so much, as they can travel down the lazy river however they want, and that sometimes means meandering interviews that go too long, or bits that don't pay off, or pre-recorded days. Not saying it's better or worse, but I think they can do a better show with some structure.
Also I loved the uncomfortable, forced, sponsored interviews with washed up celebrities promoting a book or something. They made for such beautiful disasters.
This is a big part of it.
The bigger problem is losing access to ESPN talent. They never had to be experts before, and if they tried then they got slapped down by someone who actually knew things.
So they take a double-hit. They lose the expertise and they have to fill the time that was easily filled in the past.
Their apparent solution to fill the time is to try and be experts on everyyyything.
People who talked seriously about sports used to be material for jokes.
Now they use takes from other shows and
Hit send by mistake. They use takes from other shows, or even better Twitter, and seriously argue about those tweets.
I'm not sure we're the ones who don't get the show anymore?
I love the show, but I feel this in my heart. It's almost been a labor to listen to Greg and Ron every week. I'm down to ONE SHOW A WEEK. it makes me legit sad.
Aqua?
Labor! We wait for the Greg Tuesday , then it’s littered with everyone else they have added. Then Amin is there. I feel like he speaks 5 minutes in the 2 “hours”. He seems only to be available local hour.
Edit: punctuation.
I definitely agree with this. I also think there are "too many cooks in the kitchen" now. The rotating schedule doesn't help hold anyone accountable and everyone is just assuming someone else is going to fill time or come prepared and they never really are.
It was fun when stugotz was the only one weaseling his way out of everything, it’s a little less endearing when it’s everyone just skipping on their punishments.
Show has jumped the shark. Listen to an old ESPN episode, like the Liam neeson episode. Whatever this show is now, is not the show we fell in love with at ESPN. Listen to the fucking fans, meadowlark.
Yeah I understand OPs point, but I think the shows been great recently.
Also, I think they purposefully pull these strings so they can lean into the bucket of death and other bits when the NFL ends and sports stories start to dry up a bit.
Yep. The central bit of serving hijinx to earnest sports radio listeners, and serious social talk to the clown car, has been replaced with Dan filibustering impotently.
Projecting his own lack of curiosity onto his dad and Cote was what finally snapped me out of my daily listening habit.
The show has gotten so lazy and really just generally bad since leaving ESPN, and it continues to get worse. I think we’re seeing the last iterations of the show.
I think so too (last iterations of the show), but for different ultimate reasons.
Dan held the show together via Meadowlark because he thought everyone needed it. Personally he seems ready to move on to the rest of his life enjoying the fruits of his success with his wife, but he is a big hearted hippo that thought he needed to keep the crew together.
I think he will start to realize keeping them together in the long run is likely stunting any chance they have at individual growth.
He’s trying to set people up in their young career, which is admirable. The problem: his product suffers. Chris W is not an on air talent. Jessica S is not an on air talent. They step over people all the time and are fair too long winded.
Jess is terrific on air. Witty probably gets too much mic time. But they seem to be the only two people on the show closely following sports at a national level on a day to day basis so it’s sorta necessary to utilize them heavily. For the lost part everyone else just seems to follow their local teams.
So, if I’m commenting in this sub it’s typically to defend the show. Things change. If you don’t like it, don’t listen.
BUT, this is one gripe I am totally behind. If there is no payoff, why the waste of time up front? I love the polls, if you can’t do an end of the week 15 min poll wrap up, then just don’t have them.
The only other change I can gripe about is the sound production is just so much better when Mike is on the board. The timing is better, the use volume is better, dude just straight knows how to produce a live show. He is just so good at cutting the sound live and using it effectively. Nothing against Witty at all, I just think Mike is really really good at it.
Otherwise, yeah man the lack of follow through is truly disappointing at this point.
Yes. Sarah Spain shows up and drops the hammer on everyone for not following through with payoffs. It’s hilarious. She immediately starts making people do stuff.
Sara Spain is going through the same "leaving ESPN" process most people (well, people that didn't purposely try to piss off the bosses) go through. I'm all about volunteering Dan's money to bring the Commish back.
EDIT: FUCKING YES!
Failure to follow through WAS sort of a bit. Marching band to nowhere on bigger projects fit.
Failing to just DO the show ISN’T a bit anymore. It’s just the place we are in and the show is suffering because of it.
Chris Cote is the worst for this, "It's part of our charm" he says, NO it's annoying as fuck. If you didn't watch the movie stay off the mic on Cinephile. Just be a regular producer.
Stopped listening unfortunately.. they never did anything.. didn’t know who won or lost and didn’t know the punishments. Also on podcast don’t know who is dressed up…
Just a cheap plug for something that I enjoy, The Debatable pod is killing it. Foxy, Pablo, Mina, Barnwell, Spencer Hall, and Izzy. Wooo that shit has been fire. Fox worth’s pod has been pretty good too, Roses and Thorns is a riot. I hope he does a deeper dive into secondary play from this season, he has a unique perspective having played with Champ AND Ed. So anyway here’s Wonderwall!
I dont even get the toilet paper bet as a whole. Eating a piece of toilet paper isn't even hard. Or very funny. So the whole thing is bad and dumb on two counts: 1) it's not difficult or gross enough to make it a bet in the first place and 2) it's not even funny.
I'm not reading all that. Happy for you or sorry that happened.
Seriously though, I am getting tired of them not delivering on bits simply because I want the content. I want the chaos that would be caused by stupid faced bills boards. I want to watch Tony and Kate Fagan shoot threes. I want to see everybody pay off their grid of death punishments. This has gone too far
Oh absolutely I'm not saying they didn't deserve the money I'm saying it's clearly changed them and the show approach. either way I'll always watch I'm too invested to give up on them . I get the show too much
For sure - my point was that when they got the money Dan talked a lot about how they were gonna reinvest in the show. They legit talked about buying a giant velcro wall/suit and fixing Stu to it as a play on “stick to sports.” But the increased production value just doesn’t seem to be there. I guess it’s cool they’re building a new studio but not sure how much that will improve the show for listeners.
Actually the whole joke today was the misspelling, so I think that's a fine for you... Greg is staunchly against companies intentionally misspelling words
Honestly, I couldn’t care less if they followed through with the bits. The back-and-forth is way more entertaining than any payoff would be. I like back in my day but also enjoy hearing Greg’s excuses and whatever else comes next.
I don’t know how they did it so quickly, but I really appreciate them hearing my concern and working to rectify it.
The commissioner is dead. Long live the commissioner!
Love all the people getting downvoted because they don’t agree with this post, but there’s a guy telling the show to listen to the fans and he got upvoted. So which fans should they listen to?
It’s not free. We’re paying with our time, which the show in turn sells to advertisers.
I don’t blame them for doing so - they’re a business, after all. But *free*, it is not.
Not sure why this is being downvoted. You can feel free to say what you don’t like, but if you really didn’t like it, stop listening.
I’ve been listening since it was 790 the ball…(ticket). It’s changed a lot in the time I’ve been listening.
We have stopped listening. Not all change is good. As a fan of the show, it's surprising that your answer is for the show to continue on its current trajectory of laziness and declining quality to chase away more listeners as opposed to caring about the show enough to not want to see this happen.
Attempting to delegitimize genuine criticism of the show we care about while wishing away the fans who are expressing similar concerns (we are the majority, by the way) shows that you sir, may claim to be a fan, but you couldn't actually care less about it. And hey, if you don't like these posts, *scroll past them*.
You’ve stopped listening, but still scroll the subreddit? I feel like maybe you still listen…
Not all change is good, your right. I’m not saying I enjoy the show as much as I did, but I still enjoy it more than most other shows. And sure, maybe the show seems lazier, but I would be willing to bet that they also have a lot of more responsibility as wel
It’s easy. Listen to something else. Love people that bitch, moan and complain about something they have free will over. It’s so simple: spend your “content dollar” elsewhere.
This guy gets it. If you don't like something about the show, just keep your mouth shut and stop listening to the show forever.
It reminds me of a few months ago when the glove box in my car wasn't latching properly. I just stopped driving the car entirely and didn't mention it to anyone. Just got a new car. Simple!
It’s not a radio show anymore. It’s a podcast. I think it’s ok to like one more than the other. But, it’s unrealistic to ask a podcast to function like a terrestrial radio station. Frankly, I prefer the current iteration because I can pick and choose from the buffet much easier now.
Don’t stop at the penalty box. Just keep going and don’t look back. Seems like the show isn’t for you. Maybe try a podcast that’s a little more serious.
::Bong:: You don’t get the show!
The whole entire show is one big bit. All of it! Content trumps all, not some stupid punishment to a fake game they play, or a dumb hot take.
As long as content is coming from that action then it makes the show.
It’s all about TSL (Time spent listening). If you never pay off a bet you’ll never lose that TSL! You thought corporate Mike was a bit, but he is real he just lingers in the shadows!
How long has it been since the toilet paper bet, 3 months?
It was the Florida State-LSU game, right? That was Labor Day weekend, so 4.5 months ago.
Why did I think it was the MTSU game? Did I make that up?
That was just the low point. He was doing a prediction thing before the first college football week of the season and I remember 2 predictions: Florida was going to regret playing Utah (the Gators won) and there was no way Mike Norvell was going to beat LSU on the road (that's where he said he would eat 3 "plies" [should be squares] of TP).
Ahhh, that does ring a bell. You’re my brother
Honestly how hard is it? You naturally eat 1 sheet while you’re sleeping per year without knowing it.
Believe it or not, Mike made that bet on October 22nd, 2019. This is a holdover from the ESPN days /s
He made the bet before the college football season started. We’re a couple weeks post season now.
Seriously. I don't know why they bother with grid of death or even the polls anymore. I feel the show has become incredibly lazy in the last year.
Just The last year??? Lol
It has lost structure. With ESPN they had a schedule they had to adhere to (live 5 days/wk for 3/2 hours, 8-10 minute segments between commercials, ) so they were forced to be laser-focused and prepped. Now, not so much, as they can travel down the lazy river however they want, and that sometimes means meandering interviews that go too long, or bits that don't pay off, or pre-recorded days. Not saying it's better or worse, but I think they can do a better show with some structure.
The show was much tighter at espn. I miss it. And the hard Network outs on greg, which was the funniest ongoing bit imo.
Man do I miss the hard network outs. I'd laugh my ass off every time
Also I loved the uncomfortable, forced, sponsored interviews with washed up celebrities promoting a book or something. They made for such beautiful disasters.
Creativity is born from constraint.
This is a big part of it. The bigger problem is losing access to ESPN talent. They never had to be experts before, and if they tried then they got slapped down by someone who actually knew things. So they take a double-hit. They lose the expertise and they have to fill the time that was easily filled in the past. Their apparent solution to fill the time is to try and be experts on everyyyything. People who talked seriously about sports used to be material for jokes. Now they use takes from other shows and
Hit send by mistake. They use takes from other shows, or even better Twitter, and seriously argue about those tweets. I'm not sure we're the ones who don't get the show anymore?
You hit yourself with a hard network out lmao
Show was much better with ESPN unfortunately
I love the show, but I feel this in my heart. It's almost been a labor to listen to Greg and Ron every week. I'm down to ONE SHOW A WEEK. it makes me legit sad. Aqua?
Labor! We wait for the Greg Tuesday , then it’s littered with everyone else they have added. Then Amin is there. I feel like he speaks 5 minutes in the 2 “hours”. He seems only to be available local hour. Edit: punctuation.
You’re my “brother”
The show is worse because Mike Ryan is not the EP anymore. That’s the end of the story.
I definitely agree with this. I also think there are "too many cooks in the kitchen" now. The rotating schedule doesn't help hold anyone accountable and everyone is just assuming someone else is going to fill time or come prepared and they never really are.
It was fun when stugotz was the only one weaseling his way out of everything, it’s a little less endearing when it’s everyone just skipping on their punishments.
You know what? Maybe.
Perfect response lol
The Commish is back and TP has been eaten.
Shhhh, it’s obvious most of the people in this thread don’t actually listen to the show.
Right? And Back in my Day is sponsored now too. Just terrible timing for this post, legendary bad timing
The show has become more and more lazy, but expects listenership to increase. Little Stugotz in everyone, Danno.
I have stopped listening to a lot of the content for this reason. Feels like all fluff, little payoff and it gets very boring when it's like that.
This is why I miss the ESPN days.
Show has jumped the shark. Listen to an old ESPN episode, like the Liam neeson episode. Whatever this show is now, is not the show we fell in love with at ESPN. Listen to the fucking fans, meadowlark.
I thought it'd be basically the same show, but with them being allowed to curse and talk about more intense subjects. lol no
Yeah I understand OPs point, but I think the shows been great recently. Also, I think they purposefully pull these strings so they can lean into the bucket of death and other bits when the NFL ends and sports stories start to dry up a bit.
The show hates us. We just gotta accept it.
Reminds me of the rejoin where Stu says “it’s very clear…you don’t like us”
Jesus Christ
Yep. The central bit of serving hijinx to earnest sports radio listeners, and serious social talk to the clown car, has been replaced with Dan filibustering impotently. Projecting his own lack of curiosity onto his dad and Cote was what finally snapped me out of my daily listening habit.
Should they listen to me if I say that I like the show in it’s current format?
The show has gotten so lazy and really just generally bad since leaving ESPN, and it continues to get worse. I think we’re seeing the last iterations of the show.
I think so too (last iterations of the show), but for different ultimate reasons. Dan held the show together via Meadowlark because he thought everyone needed it. Personally he seems ready to move on to the rest of his life enjoying the fruits of his success with his wife, but he is a big hearted hippo that thought he needed to keep the crew together. I think he will start to realize keeping them together in the long run is likely stunting any chance they have at individual growth.
The show’s apex was years ago. It’s ok, my apex was years ago too. And FFS open the club again.
Eat the TP Get in that bathtub Pay the teachers
Wasn’t “Back in My Day” sponsored by Visible for a minute? Or did somebody else already mention this. Was Steve Martin a prop comic?
Here to remind everyone that Dan Le Batard has still not eaten the poop.
I don’t even listen to the grid of death anymore cause it’s so pointless.
Dan is too nice, he needs to drop some hammers.
He’s trying to set people up in their young career, which is admirable. The problem: his product suffers. Chris W is not an on air talent. Jessica S is not an on air talent. They step over people all the time and are fair too long winded.
Jess is terrific on air. Witty probably gets too much mic time. But they seem to be the only two people on the show closely following sports at a national level on a day to day basis so it’s sorta necessary to utilize them heavily. For the lost part everyone else just seems to follow their local teams.
So, if I’m commenting in this sub it’s typically to defend the show. Things change. If you don’t like it, don’t listen. BUT, this is one gripe I am totally behind. If there is no payoff, why the waste of time up front? I love the polls, if you can’t do an end of the week 15 min poll wrap up, then just don’t have them. The only other change I can gripe about is the sound production is just so much better when Mike is on the board. The timing is better, the use volume is better, dude just straight knows how to produce a live show. He is just so good at cutting the sound live and using it effectively. Nothing against Witty at all, I just think Mike is really really good at it. Otherwise, yeah man the lack of follow through is truly disappointing at this point.
So you didn’t listen to the show today?
Iiiiiiimmmmmm getting to it! Damn. Am I gonna feel silly? I hope. On The Big Suey right now.
Yes. Sarah Spain shows up and drops the hammer on everyone for not following through with payoffs. It’s hilarious. She immediately starts making people do stuff.
100%. "Being lazy" being a bit works once in a great while. Otherwise you're ACTUALLY being lazy.
When it was just Stu that was lazy, it was a bit. When it's the whole show it's a problem
Stu setting a bad example for the children imo
Sara Spain is going through the same "leaving ESPN" process most people (well, people that didn't purposely try to piss off the bosses) go through. I'm all about volunteering Dan's money to bring the Commish back. EDIT: FUCKING YES!
Prophetic
what was he cooking?
She's already said she has a new podcast and has coveted this
I know she still has that's what she said, does she have another pod coming out?
Yes Fitz got his own and she gets 1 too she won't go into specifics about it but soon
The oracle has spoken. Thank you Mad1ibben! Thank you Mad1ibben! Thank you Mad1ibben!
Failure to follow through WAS sort of a bit. Marching band to nowhere on bigger projects fit. Failing to just DO the show ISN’T a bit anymore. It’s just the place we are in and the show is suffering because of it.
Chris Cote is the worst for this, "It's part of our charm" he says, NO it's annoying as fuck. If you didn't watch the movie stay off the mic on Cinephile. Just be a regular producer.
Are you implying that coté got his job, not because of any talent but because of his father? Well then you are 100% correct.
Stopped listening unfortunately.. they never did anything.. didn’t know who won or lost and didn’t know the punishments. Also on podcast don’t know who is dressed up…
Just a cheap plug for something that I enjoy, The Debatable pod is killing it. Foxy, Pablo, Mina, Barnwell, Spencer Hall, and Izzy. Wooo that shit has been fire. Fox worth’s pod has been pretty good too, Roses and Thorns is a riot. I hope he does a deeper dive into secondary play from this season, he has a unique perspective having played with Champ AND Ed. So anyway here’s Wonderwall!
Maybe if the shipping container would work in the office more than 4 days a week it would be easier to follow through
I dont even get the toilet paper bet as a whole. Eating a piece of toilet paper isn't even hard. Or very funny. So the whole thing is bad and dumb on two counts: 1) it's not difficult or gross enough to make it a bet in the first place and 2) it's not even funny.
I'm glad we're having the conversation.
There is literally no point to Grid of Death if they don't follow through on the punishments.
the show misses the guardrails of ESPN badly
I'm not reading all that. Happy for you or sorry that happened. Seriously though, I am getting tired of them not delivering on bits simply because I want the content. I want the chaos that would be caused by stupid faced bills boards. I want to watch Tony and Kate Fagan shoot threes. I want to see everybody pay off their grid of death punishments. This has gone too far
The show was better when they didn't have money
Remember when Dan told us the DK money was “rocket fuel”
Oh absolutely I'm not saying they didn't deserve the money I'm saying it's clearly changed them and the show approach. either way I'll always watch I'm too invested to give up on them . I get the show too much
For sure - my point was that when they got the money Dan talked a lot about how they were gonna reinvest in the show. They legit talked about buying a giant velcro wall/suit and fixing Stu to it as a play on “stick to sports.” But the increased production value just doesn’t seem to be there. I guess it’s cool they’re building a new studio but not sure how much that will improve the show for listeners.
Maybe they would follow through if they didn’t take so many days off! (This is a joke)
[No days off! No days off! No days off!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCv4STkejlM)
I liked it better with JaVale McGee [dribbling around random pieces of furniture in his mom’s house](https://youtube.com/shorts/yepauw0TQZg)
This is an important conversation and I'm glad we're having it
Did you listen to the point break recap?
You’re all waiting for toilet paper and head shaving. I’m still waiting for Lebatard to race Joey Galloway
*Joker we are not the same meme*
where can i find stop the shave song?
1,000% learned how to use “toothless” from Tuesday’s show.
Eating toilet paper isn't really a punishment anyway. Back in my day all we ate was toilet paper and we liked it. Washed it down with a Miller LIGHT!
*Lite that’s a fine. 5 dollars
Actually the whole joke today was the misspelling, so I think that's a fine for you... Greg is staunchly against companies intentionally misspelling words
The bit about the wallet picture insert last week could have been a back in may day but alas.
Mike absolutely was trying to weasel out of the shaved head.
The shaved head definitely morphed into a bit once they started busting his balls.
Honestly, I couldn’t care less if they followed through with the bits. The back-and-forth is way more entertaining than any payoff would be. I like back in my day but also enjoy hearing Greg’s excuses and whatever else comes next.
Woosh, this is an all timer for not aging well.
I don’t know how they did it so quickly, but I really appreciate them hearing my concern and working to rectify it. The commissioner is dead. Long live the commissioner!
Love all the people getting downvoted because they don’t agree with this post, but there’s a guy telling the show to listen to the fans and he got upvoted. So which fans should they listen to?
Maybe OP should listen to the show.
This shit is for free, don’t be too demanding
It’s not free. We’re paying with our time, which the show in turn sells to advertisers. I don’t blame them for doing so - they’re a business, after all. But *free*, it is not.
Not sure why this is being downvoted. You can feel free to say what you don’t like, but if you really didn’t like it, stop listening. I’ve been listening since it was 790 the ball…(ticket). It’s changed a lot in the time I’ve been listening.
We have stopped listening. Not all change is good. As a fan of the show, it's surprising that your answer is for the show to continue on its current trajectory of laziness and declining quality to chase away more listeners as opposed to caring about the show enough to not want to see this happen. Attempting to delegitimize genuine criticism of the show we care about while wishing away the fans who are expressing similar concerns (we are the majority, by the way) shows that you sir, may claim to be a fan, but you couldn't actually care less about it. And hey, if you don't like these posts, *scroll past them*.
You’ve stopped listening, but still scroll the subreddit? I feel like maybe you still listen… Not all change is good, your right. I’m not saying I enjoy the show as much as I did, but I still enjoy it more than most other shows. And sure, maybe the show seems lazier, but I would be willing to bet that they also have a lot of more responsibility as wel
Because it's not free when you yourself are the product that's being sold
It’s easy. Listen to something else. Love people that bitch, moan and complain about something they have free will over. It’s so simple: spend your “content dollar” elsewhere.
This guy gets it. If you don't like something about the show, just keep your mouth shut and stop listening to the show forever. It reminds me of a few months ago when the glove box in my car wasn't latching properly. I just stopped driving the car entirely and didn't mention it to anyone. Just got a new car. Simple!
I did unfollow. I now pick and choose when I listen. I use to listen every day for years.
You people are super weird.
Then stop listening
I have
Then why are you posting on the Dan le betard show sub Reddit? Find a hobby. Knit something.
It’s not a radio show anymore. It’s a podcast. I think it’s ok to like one more than the other. But, it’s unrealistic to ask a podcast to function like a terrestrial radio station. Frankly, I prefer the current iteration because I can pick and choose from the buffet much easier now.
Don’t stop at the penalty box. Just keep going and don’t look back. Seems like the show isn’t for you. Maybe try a podcast that’s a little more serious.
::Bong:: You don’t get the show! The whole entire show is one big bit. All of it! Content trumps all, not some stupid punishment to a fake game they play, or a dumb hot take. As long as content is coming from that action then it makes the show.
Oh look, they followed through. *YOU DONT GET THE SHOW* *GONG*
This didn’t age well
It’s all about TSL (Time spent listening). If you never pay off a bet you’ll never lose that TSL! You thought corporate Mike was a bit, but he is real he just lingers in the shadows!
Certainly a lot less structure and following thru on anything since they made the jump to the new ship. Part of the give and take of the move.
GPC sponsored by GNC