Jason Fitz is the guest on the latest episode of the Sports Talkers Podcast. During the show, he told host Stephen Strom that his ESPN Radio partner Sarah Spain had a major influence on the way he approaches a sports radio show.
Spain & Fitz initially launched in 2018. Fitz says he came into the show thinking of the format purely as an entertainment product, comparing it to his music career. He didn’t want to bore the crowd with any proverbial “slow jams.”
“I look at it like ‘Man, most of the people tuning in have already had a really bad week. They just want to celebrate sports. They want levity. They want to laugh. They want entertainment value out of this.’ So I want to do a concert full of up-tempo songs,” he said. “Sarah taught me if that’s all you do, that’s all you’ll ever be seen as and you won’t get the same level of reality and respect from people.”
Sarah Spain is a journalist and thinks about how to present tough stories. Jason Fitz says that is not something he knew how to do on his own and has learned from his partner.
He added that Spain’s passion for women’s sports, where the audience continues to grow, has taught him the value of sports is not about their popularity, but in what hosts can do with them. Her view is that being a broadcast partner of a league like the WNBA gives ESPN properties the advantage of being able to do more with the league’s best stories.
“The number one thing I have learned from Sarah, that no matter where the rest of my career or her career goes, that I will always keep with me is we have an obligation to not be dismissive of sports and instead to look for the great stories in sports that deserve that great storytelling. And most of them do,” Jason Fitz said.
New episodes of The Sports Talkers Podcast drop every Thursday.
