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The timing couldnt have been tighter.
The deal was finalized on a Friday in March.
But the future is hard to actualize right now.
Many podcast businesses are bracing for more turbulence ahead.
You sold The Ringer, and then the pandemic immediately shut everything down.
The biggest challenge for us is just, When do sports come back?
There were two big reasons I went to Spotify.
One was that they were going to blow out The Ringer make it bigger, all that stuff.
This would be a good week to double down on this.
So once lockdowns started and sports were done and movies werent coming out, everybody started going backwards.
Weve been doing that for 10 years, so we were ready to go.
Problem is, I think the audience is going to start to get bored of it.
Going backwards has a shelf life, and at some point youre going to need new stuff.
Its fun to react to things.
I do think that 10 or 15 years ago, it took people longer to get over news moments.
But in 2020, people are like, What just happened?
And you have about 12 to 18 hours to jump on that before people start looking forward.
When I look at stuff I did at Grantland, I wish I knew then what I know now.
Its better to be in the moment.
Audiences love hearing people they enjoy reacting to something that just occurred.
But you still need stuff to react to.
Thats whats been missing.
Ringer NBA and Ringer NFL were in the moment shows.
Once you remove that, those programs get hurt.
And the other thing is just that there are more podcasts.
More content, more people in the space.
The products are better.
Youre competing against more shows.
Even with Grantland, we had nine of the ten biggest podcasts at ESPN.
It just wasnt a space that a lot of people were in.
Now you look at the charts, you have all these pods that are targeted to specific audiences.
Theres what, 800,000 podcasts now?
Im not making excuses; I just think its the reality of it.
What is Spotifys goal with sports?That was nice of him to say.
I think they looked at us in two ways.
One is, Could we blow out The Ringer into something bigger with more resources?
And then, How do we figure out sports?
For me, the domestic part is easy.
I know I can help with that.
The daunting part the real challenge, which Im excited about is the global part.
Because Spotify wants to be the dominant audio platform everywhere.
That was the No.
1 reason I wanted to go there.
Im at a point in my life where I really just want to win.
And people who are willing to take chances with it.
Its probably something that will not happen again for them because of the waysubs went backwardsand everything.
Spotify reminded me of that point when I was at ESPN and a lot of the stars had aligned.
The big difference is Daniel.
The guy is like a genius.
He might be Steve Jobs for audio.
Thats whats different than ESPN.
ESPN always had different executives, an upper level by consensus.
So the chance to work with somebody like that was cool.
The other thing is that they dont have a lot of competition for what their goals are.
People always compare them to Netflix and where Netflix was four, five years ago.
The similarities are definitely obvious.
Netflix had a six, seven year head start on everybody, and you might feel it.
Theyre the dominant video platform.
Spotify is in the same position, except I dont know who the competitors are going to be.
You look at how theyve mobilized around Apple TV+, all the money spent on that.
Theyve never done that for audio.
They feel like theyre already in this space.
Theyre getting all the data from it, and theyre good.
Which is fine; it might even be the right choice.
But for Spotify, its a really unique chance to become dominant in the most major way.
In the 80s, people thought they knew what Disney was, right?
They had parks, animation, made some movies, made some other things.
And then Bob Iger goes even three steps beyond that.
Now theyre the biggest media company we have.
Do I think that could happen at Spotify?
At some point, are they going to think, Were killing it in audio.
Should we start doing more?
Were there offers from other companies?No.
Theres been so much misinformation and bad reporting.
We never hired a banker.
We never seriously talked to other companies, and anybody who says we did is lying.
We werent trying to sell.
We formed the company in October 2015.
We were trying to build something.
We had a lot of success in 2018 and 2019.
We were at the point where we were profitable.
For me personally, I didnt have to answer to anybody.
From that moment on, I wanted to be in control of my own destiny.
I loved what we did with The Ringer the first three years.
We were not trying to sell.
We had a bunch of meetings with them, and Im a moron.
I didnt realize they were scouting us, because wed been pretty clear that we didnt want to sell.
We stayed in touch, and it didnt really heat up until September.
HBO owned a minor stake in The Ringer, and they wanted to know what they had.
And I remember I talked to somebody from Bleacher Report.
There was a split second where it was like, What would this look like?
But it was never serious, and it wasnt even something I wanted to do.
Spotify is an audio company.
I have a handwritten piece of paper from a month after I left ESPN.
So like June 2015.
Its pretty cool, actually.
That was when I really started researching everything, talking to people, and figuring out a game plan.
We knew in 2015 and 16 that the website was never going to be a massive moneymaker.
Its just the way print on the web was going.
It always made sense, and it still makes sense.
We were able over and over again to find talent through the website, and thats an advantage.
So its still important to us.
What happens to print in 2020 on the web?
I have no idea.
There was friction with the unionwhen news about the acquisition talks emerged.
Where are you in that relationship right now?I mean, friction, I dont know about.
We recognized it in three days.
And then, from a deal standpoint, there were rumors that we were close to a deal.
You cant talk about it with anybody.
Thats just how business works.
Theres really no story behind it.
And it sucks not to be able to tell people, but it sucks not being able to tellanybody.
I couldnt tell friends that Ive had since I was 15, you know?
Its just the way it goes.
So I dont know if friction is the right word.
But yeah, were still bargaining.
Its been ten months.
Its always been hard for me to make a run at be split in five different ways.
I got burned out in, like, I dont know, 18 months.
Now Im older, too, so thats like having a torn ACL.
And now, of course, podcasts beat long-form interviews on TV.
So I like where Im at now with that.
I love doing my podcast.
I love the creativity of it, the format.
I dont just meanthatpodcast.
I love doing theBook of Basketballstuff.
I love popping on other peoples pods.
From a TV standpoint, would I want to be a talking head?
I feel like Im a talking head now; you just cant see it.
You really have to be on, and its harder than youd think it would be.
I was always in awe of the people who could do that.
Michelle Beadle was like that.
Id never seen anything like it.
Magic was like that.
He had an On switch.
The Spotify VOD-casting thing is going to be really cool and different, and Im excited for that.
I knowyou wrote about it last week.
Some people, for whatever reason, like watching podcasts.
The goal of Spotify is, We want you on our app come to our app and stay there.
Thats a good example of why we wanted to go there.
Can you guys be the test case for it?
Its like, Great, that sounds awesome.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
