South Beach Sessions to be Weekly Starting in January

ESPN Radio host Dan Le Batard will bring his strongly held, incisive and often contrarian opinions – as well as his irreverent wit – to podcasting with the launch of South Beach Sessions.  A preview episode Tuesday, Dec. 18, will be followed with the start of a weekly schedule Tuesday, Jan. 8.  SBS will feature a one-on-one interview each week and is the first original podcast from the newly created Le Batard and Friends Podcast Network.  The guest for the December 18 preview is former ESPNer Jemele Hill who has worked extensively with Le Batard over the years on TV and radio.  Future guests will come from sports, entertainment or music.

“On his radio show, Dan takes listeners on a roller-coaster ride full of authentic emotions – from taking a tough stand on an issue to sadness to hilarity, both in and out of sports conversations,” said Pete Gianesini, ESPN senior director, digital audio programming.  “Podcasting is the perfect vehicle to capture and dive deeper into those feelings in the intimate dynamic of a one-on-one conversation.”

Le Batard added, “”This is really exciting for us, and for people who inexplicably want more of us. ESPN has given us a digital podcast network to create and control as part of a LeBatard and Friends universe that will be in equal measure a part of ESPN and apart from ESPN. We’re going to be making more stuff, in other words, and it’ll start with South Beach Sessions as the flagship podcast, but you’ll be getting more and better from all the friends of the show, and we will soar toward the sun, and we will laugh like family and then Stugotz will ruin it all when he is arrested by federal authorities.”

The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz (weekdays from 10 a.m. – 1 p.m. ET, simulcast on ESPNEWS) joined the national ESPN Radio lineup in September 2015.  Alongside co-host Jon “Stugotz” Weiner, the duo has unique chemistry and the show is a blend of thoughtful conversation, self-deprecating humor, and sports and celebrity guests.  The show began as a local program in his native Miami where it continues to be based.  He also hosts Highly Questionable weekday afternoons on ESPN2 where he appears with his father, Papi, and a guest host.

Le Batard’s radio show also is made available via a podcast and it consistently leads ESPN’s offerings with more than eight million downloads per month.  SBS is the first of the original podcasts to come from the radio show and the voices you hear regularly on the show as part of the Le Batard and Friends Podcast Network.

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