The Josh Innes Show - Rich Eisen's Big Ratings

Episode Date: August 21, 2025

Rich Eisen returned to SportsCenter and popped a big rating Monday night. This has led people to write stories about how ESPN nostalgia runs deep and could be lucrative. I disagree. Don't be fooled by one night. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All right, let's see here. I tweeted about this the other day, and I believe this to be true. I feel like I am the only person on social media who watched SportsCenter religiously back in the 90s and loved ESPN and loved everything on ESPN, whether it be up close, whether it be whatever wacky game shows they started implementing or stump the Schwab or SportsCenter or baseball tonight or the hockey shows or NFL prime time. I was a young dude growing up that was addicted to sports and love sports. And because there was no outlet to get it, there was no internet. Really, sports radio where I was was a non-factor in Baton Rouge. So I didn't get all that kind of stuff. ESPN was truly the outlet that I used to get that.

But I feel like I'm the only person who grew up in that era who did not give a shit about Rich Eisen coming back to ESPN. And I really still don't. And I don't like a lot of these old SportsCenter anchors. because looking back on it, they were all just pretty hacky and they think very highly of themselves, but they were in a right place, right time situation. But Rich Eisen came back to Sports Center, and I want to get into some of the ratings stuff about that here and just kind of nostalgia in general. We'll do that after these messages. This episode is brought to you by Square.

You're not just running a restaurant. You're building something big, and Square's there for all of it, giving your customers more ways. to order, whether that's in person with Square Ciosk or online. Instant access to your sales, plus the funding you need to go even bigger. And real-time insights so you know what's working, what's not,

and what's next. Because when you're doing big things, your tools should to. Visit square.ca to get started. So here's where we are. So Rich Eisen, Sports Center, and people were all about it, right? People all over the Internet.

If you believe the Internet, it was the most important thing ever, right? So he hosted SportsCenter Monday, the 11 p.m. Sports Center. And, of course, they're kind of backed together. Rich Eisen sort of kind of back together with ESPN because his radio show is now on ESPN Radio. That is not because ESPN Radio thinks Rich Eisen's any good. And that's not because ESPN believes that Rich Eisen's radio show is great. That is because ESPN is cheap and ESPN does not want to take the time to grow any other shows. ESPN does not give a shit about their radio programming.

They do not care. I can tell you they don't care by what I hear on the air. By the morning show they put on the air. First of all, most major cities are never going to carry an ESPN morning show anyway. Kind of the way it works is this. In a lot of major cities, they may carry the first hour of that morning show because that first hour really doesn't matter. It's usually at five in the morning, four in the morning, depending on where you are. So most cities that are major cities that have big time sports radio stations that happen to carry ESPN programming or ESPN branding, they may carry the first hour just so they don't lose the naming rights to it, right?

Like, that's kind of how it works. That's why in certain radio stations, you might hear a random hour or two of an ESPN radio show on a station that otherwise has none because they have to carry that to keep ESPN. So, like, I think Chicago is doing that. The ESPN Chicago station is now airing, like, you know, a random hour or whatever of Rich Eisen or something like that. That's because they have to make ESPN happy. Mostly, though, it's just night and weekend programming that these radio stations carry. But I can tell you from listening to it with a trained ear and an educated ear about this, that ESPN radio is a dead product, and they do not give a shit about ESPN radio.

It is obvious they do not give a shit. about ESPN Radio. That is why the programming you get is very mediocre. That's why there are no stars on ESPN, and they will never grow any stars on ESPN. The last one they really had, you could argue were Dan Lebitard and Colin Cowherd, both of whom are gone. Doesn't mean there aren't a couple of good guys. My guy, Joe Fortinbaugh, who is there, I like a lot. He's a good dude, but Allentown Joe, I call him. But for the most part, ESPN Radio exists to promote what's on ESPN TV and in some cases to provide programming for ESPN TV when they air the radio shows. Although, I don't think you see that as much anymore.

Now, granted, I don't seek it out, so I don't know. But, like, Mike and Mike was a big deal, and Mike aired on television, and it aired in, like, a real slot on television, and it was a big deal. I don't think that's the case for a lot of these. Maybe they put their morning show on ESPN news or ESPN2 or wherever. But for the most part, ESPN radio is a throwaway. Most major cities don't carry any of the major programming anyway. That's why to me it's not a big deal when someone says they're a network radio personality or a syndicated personality.

That basically just means that most major cities in the country don't air your shit and you air, you know, in Mobile. No offense to Mobile. Nice place. But that's where a lot of these syndicated shows now air because any other radio market that has any sort of gravitas, not gravitas, that's not the right word I'm looking for. But a market with any weight, which I guess is gravitas, but a market that. that matters and is large enough and has major sports teams will not be carrying shitty syndicated programming. Therefore, being a syndicated radio program doesn't matter.

And that's why Rich Eisen is now on ESPN Radio. It's so they can air his show on ESPN television. And it doesn't cost him anything. That's the other thing. It might cost him a little, but it's not like they're paying Rich Eisen. Rich Eisen owns a show and they're paying the licensing fee to air the Rich Eisen show. And I doubt that it's nearly as much as the Pat Mac if he showed that they pay the licensing fees for. Because Pat McAfee is essentially his own fucking boss and owns his own universe, whereas I believe Rich Eisen is through a different company, whatever.

Point being in all of this is Rich Eisen airs on ESPN now because ESPN just doesn't want to groom local talent or new talent, doesn't want to build anything. This isn't like a situation when they pluck cowherd from Portland and turn him into one of the biggest radio stars they've ever had. Those days are dead. It's over. So you just go out and you do a licensing deal with Rich Eisen who puts on one of the most boring shows ever. he is smug and condescending and I don't like him and I could not care less that he is back on ESPN hosting this nostalgic episode of SportsCenter with Stuart Scott. Most of these guys, when I look back on them, I think that they were all pretty hacky dudes anyway. They weren't doing anything super special.

That's why when I hear these dudes that are like, I want to go back to the old days of SportsCenter, you realize all they're doing on SportsCenter is just younger dudes doing the same schick that those other guys did. you just liked the shtick more back in 1995 than you do in 2025. It's wacky nicknames. It's trying to be too cool for school and doing the highlights. It's basically like this. If original, I'd say original, but if 90s SportsCenter were like saved by the bell, this is just fucking saved by the bell the new class. It's a lot of the same shit, but different faces with different names, but that's all it is.

Now, Rich Eisen hosted Sports Center. And ratings came out for that sports center on Wednesday. And according to this story, they believe that nostalgia for classic sports center runs deep. Mike McCarthy, a front office sports, relayed the numbers. It was the most watched 11 p.m. Sports Center since mid-June at 708,000 viewers. That's 67% above the average time slot. The episode garnered more eyeballs than the last Sports Center episode that was hosted by Rich Eisen in 2002. So, 708,000 people watched it.

was up 67% from the average 11 p.m. Sports Center, the most watched 11 p.m. Sports Center since mid-June and slightly above Eisen's last in 2002. All right, what does that all mean? It's a one-off thing. So what happens is sometimes people will see numbers like this and get caught up and they'll believe that this is some sort of sign that, oh, boy, the nostalgia runs deep and we need to have Rich Eisen on TV every day. That is not true. That is not the case. One-off nostalgia thing. are nice, but it's not sustainable. Let's look at when Roseanne came back. So if you remember the first episode of Roseanne, when that show came back as Roseanne, seven years ago, eight years ago, whatever it was, it came back and had like the biggest ratings of the year for any TV show, like 20-something million. The next couple of weeks were still giant relative to the current

landscape of TV, but the numbers dipped each week and like kind of leveled off at a really good number, but still not that same number of people that viewed when it was the first episode back and that interest was there. If you put Rich Eisen on TV tomorrow, it will not have 708,000 viewers, and it will not be up 67% from the average sports center. It will eventually just be the average sports center, because the anchor sports center does not matter. All that matters is it's ESPN. No one's tuning in for the anchor. Now, I will give these guys this. I do believe that people had their favorite anchors and knew who these people were in the 90s, but part of that was because it was your only place to really get sports information. So you knew who Rich Eisen

was. You knew who Stuart Scott was. They were in commercials. You knew who Chris Berman was. You knew who Bob Lee was. You knew who Charlie Steiner was. You knew these people, but now I couldn't name any of them. So if you want to give some level of credit to the Rich Eisen's and all the guys I mentioned, Dan Patrick's and Keith Oberman's, people did tune in because they liked those guys. but I don't think it would have mattered who was on TV. They still would have tuned in because it was SportsCenter and it was ESPN, and that's where people got their sports information long before the days of tons of cable channels and sports radio being everywhere and everything else, the Internet and Twitter.

So, yes, I think people were tuning in for those guys then, but not to the degree that people believe they were. Now you fast forward to now. I couldn't name one SportsCenter anchor. I honest a guy who is Dari Noca? No, he's on like Big Ten Network. I'm trying to think of somebody who's a sports center anchor. And I don't think that bothers them. I don't think ESPN is bothered by the fact that nobody can tell you who hosts SportsCenter

because it doesn't matter. It's ESPN and the people who are going to watch it are watching it because it's ESPN, not because of who the anchor is. But don't fall in love with the idea that rich eyes and like, you know, that nostalgia matters. Like, yes, people love to wax poetic about what SportsCenter used to be. And they loved to wax poetic about how the 90s, it wasn't super political. And it was a different world in the show. was better. We all like to do that about a bunch of different things. Oh, music was better. Oh,

movies were better. We like to wax nostalgic about things that were a bigger deal to us when we were in our youth, right? So I'm sure a lot of people tuned in because they were turned on by the idea of seeing Rich Eisen on TV again. But if Rich Eisen did that weekend, week out, day and day out, nobody would give a shit. Nobody would tune into ESPN to the clip of 700,000 viewers, which really isn't a huge number, but 700,000 viewers wouldn't tune. in every day because it's Rich Eisen because at the end of the day, it's still just sports highlights and Stephen A. Smith yelling about shit and Kendrick Perkins sounding like a dip shit and RG3 saying dumb shit, although he's not on ESPN anymore, so not RG3. But my point

being in all of this is I don't believe that people truly gave a shit. It was just, oh cool, a one-off nostalgia thing. Do it every day and see what happens. So like I see these headlines that are like, you know, rich eyes and shocking ESPN ratings. test the limits of sports center nostalgia. It's a one-off. Do it tomorrow and see what happens. See what happens when it's like the middle of June and the NBA finals are over and we've got baseball highlights

and Stephen A. Smith is yelling about the Cowboys for some reason, even though it's June. Tell me what happens then. That's when you know if you truly have mass appeal and star appeal if people are going to tune in every day to see you. This is just old white dudes who like to yell at clouds on the internet. internet who are like, oh my God, I remember these days before ESPN was super political. This is what we're getting.

This is great. Like, okay, great. That guy won't watch tomorrow. That guy has seen all he needs to see. He has seen the one-off from Rich Eisen. He doesn't need to see Rich Eisen doing WNBA highlights on a random Tuesday. He does not give a shit. And I don't think a lot of people give a lot of shits about a lot of things.

Like, ESPN is just ESPN. There is nobody they can hire or fire on ESPN that's going to make that big of an impact. Stephen A. Smith. They're obsessed with Stephen A. Smith. They pay him a ton of cash. He is the face of the network. Stephen A. Smith is ESPN. If he went away tomorrow, their ratings would not go down. The next person they'd put in there would get ratings, the same numbers, because it's a revolving door of people. It's just the brand. The brand is it. Stephen A. Smith, and Stephen A. Smith would not garner the same number of viewers, and he knows this. If he went off to his YouTube channel and said, this is my world now, I do YouTube videos. If Stephen A. Smith were to do

that, he would not have, like, let's say SportsCenter has 708,000 viewers. Stephen A. Smith would not have 7008,000 viewers of a YouTube show, and I don't care how many followers he has on there. He just wouldn't. He would not have the same cultural impact as he would on this. So I know that's a rambling way to tell you that Rich Eisen having 700,000 viewers is not this great thing that they make it sound like. If you put nostalgia out there for a one-off deal, like if Jay Leno came back tomorrow and said he's hosting one episode of the Tonight Show, you would get a bigger rating than you would have for Jimmy Fallon's Tonight Show. But what happens on Tuesday?

Do they stick around? Probably not. It would regress to the mean, right? Same would happen with if David Letterman said, I'm doing a one-off, baby. I'm going to come on. Colbert's off tonight, and it's a special return of David Letterman for one night, one night only. It'd be a huge number for them. It'd probably be double than what they normally get.

And then Tuesday would come around and it'd be like, That's just David Letterman again, and the ratings would level out. Anyway, more to come.