Dan Le Batard is a unique figure in American sports media. He made his name as a columnist at The Miami Herald, rapidly becoming one of the most interesting voices in the industry. He transitioned to radio, first locally in Miami and then for a number of years at ESPN. While at ESPN, he developed a television show called Highly Questionable that featured a rotating panel of guest co-hosts, as well as Le Batard’s own father, Gonzalo. Now, LeBatard has gone out on his own with former ESPN President John Skipper, founding Meadowlark Media, which has attracted some of sports’ most interesting and thoughtful voices, and creates content across a number of formats.
Le Batard has long been an iconoclastic voice in an industry that tends to suffer from self-importance. The business of sports is unquestionably serious. But sports themselves are games, and meant to be fun. And those of us that are sports fans invest so much of our own satisfaction and even identities in outcomes of those games that it’s easy to lose track of the fun part. Le Batard has carved out a place for himself and his team as one of the few voices willing to poke fun at the edifice, and lean into the silly and the ridiculous amidst the sublime.
The team also leans into vulnerability in ways that are unusual in sports media. Le Batard himself has spoken about deeply personal issues related to his mental health, and provided a venue for athletes and other personalities to do the same. He’s been a vocal critic of professional sports’ long-time hostility towards LGBTQ+ athletes, and promoted talented personalities like Bomani Jones, Pablo Torre, Mina Kimes, Adnan Virk, Amin Elhassan, Renee Montgomery, and Jessica Smetana who don’t look or sound like the stereotypical talking heads on legacy sports broadcasts.
Since 2019, Le Batard and his staff has produced a podcast called South Beach Sessions. It’s a one-on-one interview show that takes advantage of Le Batard’s considerable gifts as an interviewer. As Meadowlark Media has grown, the producers of South Beach Sessions have encouraged Le Batard to lean into topics that make him uncomfortable. In particular, they’ve pushed him to wrestle with his own emotions and motivations. That led to a remarkable interview last week with Greg Cote, one of Le Batard’s earliest professional friends and mentors, and a frequent contributor to Le Batard’s radio show and podcast.
I encourage you to listen to the entire show (available via the linked image below) because it’s fascinating and moving, but I’m writing this post today because of what Le Batard says about leadership and running a business. Meadowlark Media is his first venture as a corporate executive, and while he has very experienced and successful businesspeople helping run the business, he acknowledges the heaviness of being the head that wears the crown. At the same time, he’s adamant that he needs to bear certain responsibilities that he might otherwise delegate, saying that “on the other side of pain is growth”.
There’s a moment at the 46:20 mark (near the end of the interview) where Cote asks Le Batard how he wants to me remembered. “The short answer is: he cared,” says Le Batard. “The longer answer is “He cared what he built”.
I have long wanted to be known as someone who cared. About people. About growth. About results and making an impact to customers and my community. I’ve been thinking about Le Batard’s framing of caring for what he builds since I heard this interview. It takes caring from something that’s personal and even passive to something that demands action and thoughtful, purposeful commitment. And I’ll take that notion with me as I take on my next professional challenge.
Didn’t expect to get a business lesson from Dan Le Batard this month, but I suppose we can find inspiration in lots of places. And now if you’ll excuse me, the Red Sox are about to play the Angels, and I don’t need an excuse to watch baseball at 11:00 in the morning.
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