The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Oral History of the Dan Le Batard Show: Episode 12
Fri, 21 Feb 2025
In this episode of the Oral History of the Dan Le Batard Show, Dan, Stugotz, and Mike explore the COVID era of the show. What began with fear and anxiety as a global pandemic unfolded eventually turned into what the guys consider one of the most creative eras of the show. You'll hear from all three about how the show stayed afloat during an unprecedented time despite early struggles with technology and communication. They also explore how creativity could run free due to the lack of sports and the desire so many creatives had to find a platform to express their voices during the shutdown. That all comes out in this week's supercut, which features some of the funniest bits from this time with the likes of Adam McKay, hilariously troublesome interviews like the show's infamous chat with Action Bronson, and the show's icy relationship with Michael Doleac. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What is the focus of the Dan Le Batard Show during COVID?
So this will be an interesting time to revisit because I smile at it nostalgically even though it was kind of awful. And it's when COVID comes to visit and we're having trouble getting things like, hey, can I have a microphone to do the biggest sports radio show that there is in America? And Mike Ryan is getting essential worker status.
and we are handling covid professionally by having hand sanitizer in two places following the rules and do america's biggest sports radio show from an apartment in your building dan see if you can figure out the zoom and see if you can't stop feeling like this is exactly where your career is going to shit because you called john mulaney one of the world's great comics james mulvaney
Because this is where I'm starting to feel everything's coming apart for us. We're in a sad apartment. There's 80s wrestling playing on the televisions. Mike Ryan has brought in everyone by Zoom and we are doing a bare bones minimum show that can't have chemistry because we're doing it in a place that's just awful.
At least you had 80s wrestling. I mean, that's something, right? Yeah, man. All right.
This is a dark, cold, amazing, fun time.
For everyone. Yeah. Well, not fun. No, there's some fun in here. There's some fun for us, but not for everyone.
Stugatz. There's plenty of fun. Stugatz. Oh, I enjoyed it. You never watched WrestleMania 10. I had a blast. I'm telling you. I mean. You didn't have to commute. I know. I was living my dream. And I had no traffic when I was commuting. I was working out.
I'm guessing that Stugatz has not even heard one syllable of what represents during this dark, cold, creative time what I believe to be some of the funniest stuff that we have ever done in the history of this show. In the shadows of people knowing we were in trouble and doing like some really funny comedy with some talented people. Like I was talking to Jonas. and John C. Reilly.
And we had some talented people doing bits where we were making a lot of funny, creative jokes, but not able to do the show itself daily very well. Like it didn't have any chemistry because look at how we were doing it.
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Chapter 2: How did the Dan Le Batard Show adapt to remote broadcasting?
Like, how is this going to work? He said, we have a couple of remote units, these IP devices. Sugato already has one in his home because of the weekend shows that you were doing over at ESPN, which got a lot of fanfare. Yeah, and stupidity. And I actually got Amber Wilson's. I had to have Chris Cody pick it up from her house and Chris Cody dropped it off at the Clevelander.
I literally get dropped off by a boat onto like one of these neighboring islands. And I get an Uber and I go to the Clevelander to pick this up. And it looks like apocalyptic. Not in that it's empty. Quite the opposite. Everyone's on South Beach, super spreading their life away because this is the last opportunity to party. I'm like, wait a second.
You don't want me to go to the Clevelander because it's unsafe, but I'm going to the Clevelander to pick up this device. She's like, that's right. Okay.
cool.
The unsafest place on the planet right now. I'm like, look, this simply isn't going to work. Amanda at all. Dan doing this by himself. You're not going to have a show. You're not. Sue can figure it out. Dan's not going to know how to engineer this stuff. I have to learn some of this stuff. There's no way I can teach Dan remotely. I need to be with Dan. Right.
She says, fine, you can go, but only you. I'm like, what does this mean for the shipping container? We haven't figured that out yet. I'm like, okay. But we have Dan, we have Stu. Don't have the shipping container. We have me. Cool. What am I to do with this device? Well, Dan's going to be working from home.
Start with plugging it in.
That's where I started. And I didn't have the opportunity to really test this. I got to Dan's apartment, his condo in the beach. Man, this is eerie. I can smell it. Like there's so many things about that. They're just so vivid.
And what are they?
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Chapter 3: What were the major challenges of hosting the show during the pandemic?
And so look, and it's fine. Like I said, the things that have happened since then have all rewarded the way that we've done business. And there have been some ancillary costs to protect the feelings of people. I am deeply grateful that those people helped make us a video company because there were all sorts of things we didn't see that we needed that those people helped birth.
So it all ends up being our money anyway.
The simulcast of our show at this point has some static images because we don't have cameras, but also Lebo starts coming over to the apartment and sketching live shows so that our visual presentation can have some kind of supplement. So good. We were trying to push, like, how can we still be creative as the ground rules change? And I'm really proud of that. And then something funny happens.
The first couple of weeks, month, it was about survival. The second month was like, how do we make this feel better for us? The third month of it was how can we really push this? How can we use COVID as a benefit? How can we use the fact that we're disembodied voices with no real live video to our advantage? And also there's a whole bunch of creative people that have their projects on pause.
How can we use some of the smartest minds in Hollywood to work for us? Maybe they just want the creative outlet. Dan starts getting close with Adam McKay and all these other creatives in Hollywood that are dying for some sort of creative outlet. And we start doing these bits that I'm really proud of that we didn't present to the audience as bits. We were trying to fool them.
Phil Hendry style, which in the first couple episodes, I told you. probably had more influence because of how much Hawk loved him over our show than any other show that was out there. This was very Phil Hendry-esque. How did we get to making bits? How are you on the phone with Jonah Hill and John C. Reilly?
There are huge names in comedy and improvisational comedy that are coming through just playing characters. We never reveal their identity. This is all really cool stuff.
But this was a time where everyone was bored and everyone wanted to be creative. It was an easier time to get guests. It was the easiest time in the history of the show because people just wanted an outlet. They wanted to talk. They wanted to laugh.
They were cooped up too. Stavros made an early appearance there with a great bit. McKay, yeah, he needed a place to put it. And all of these people needed a place to put it. I think Jonah Hill's people ran away from him playing a bat meat lobbyist. I think there was just a whole bunch of stuff that happened there that short-circuited something.
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