Chapter 1: How did a firing at ESPN lead to the creation of this show?
Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out, presented by eBay Live. I am Pablo Torre, and today you're going to find out what this sound is.
Are you Jewish?
I am not.
Then shut up. Then you don't know what you're talking about.
Life's better with a story. I'm on the smart show.
Oh, God. That crushes me. Crushes me. How do you feel, Dan, hearing your producer, Chris Cody, say that phrase as a way of introducing this premise? He doesn't have that kind of jubilance about working on the show that has built everything here. He's got a jubilance about his debut voyage on Pablo Torre Finds Out. I'm smart.
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Chapter 2: What challenges do journalists face within established media organizations?
Look at how excited he is. I'm on the smart show. What are we finding out today? It's good to see how happy Chris is to be investigating journalistically. The reason I wanted to do this is because we get questions here, Pablo Torre finds out. And one of the questions is from a, I want to just get her name correct. It's from a listener named Jordan Hudson.
And in November, this is November 26, 2025, 1156 a.m. Eastern. Jordan Hudson said, quote, Who funds PTFO? Who is going to pull a Pablo Torre on Pablo Torre? Yeah, if people do not know how all of this was birthed, Chris Cody in some ways is ground zero on everything it is that we're doing here.
Him in his bed staring at his ceiling when ESPN, unbeknownst to me, had already told him they were letting him go. He's scared about his future.
Chapter 3: How does the structure of Meadowlark Media differ from traditional media?
His father, mentor of mine, one of my best friends, comes in the room and says, well, Dan's not going to let them fire you. Dan's not going to let that happen. And that's him having more confidence in me than I had in me at that time. I have Chris in a race car bed.
Is that the picture you're painting of like Greg Cody, longtime Miami Herald columnist, legend in South Florida, mentor of Dan Levitard coming into the room of his son, Chris, aforementioned. Chris is in pajamas. You're in PJs.
You're in pajamas.
It wasn't a room in the house, although you can be forgiven for thinking that. He was in his own room, and his father had called him. But I've known Chris since he had the equivalent of a race car bed. I'm going to guess I've known Chris since he was six years old, five years old. Yeah, I have memories of you coming into my house and eating chips and salsa at a very young age. Oh, those Tostitos.
Those Tostitos were so good.
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Chapter 4: What role does humor play in sports journalism according to the hosts?
Earlene always kept them stocked, and I would just come over. Yeah, I've known Chris and his father for more than a quarter of a century. And so for people who don't know the origin story of a company called Meadowlark Media, you may know that I have this partnership. We have this partnership with the New York Times and The Athletic. Very fancy. The Grey Lady. All of that stuff.
But if you just joined the audience of PTFO, the alleged smart show, you should know the birth canal from which we emerged. to keep the metaphor of like parental, yes. Painful pregnancy, this. This was a painful labor. You thought it was twins. It was just one giant self-absorbed noggin. I mean, Dan, the origin story of Metal Ark is the origin story not just of the Dan Levitt Tart Show,
which I hope people have some sense of, but it's the exit of the Dead Levitard show from ESPN.
Chapter 5: How did the hosts navigate controversial topics during their careers?
Whatever we do here in which we stir up shit and investigate things, it has its roots in a show I fell in love with until the show abandoned me as I remained at ESPN, actually, in 2020.
Well, you say the show abandoned you, but what happened at ESPN is that the president of ESPN left in an extortion scandal, and I had not realized the amount of protection and cover he had been providing for us as an entity because as soon as he leftā
things started happening to me professionally that had never happened before, where I had always had a very simple relationship with all my employers. I do my job well. You keep rewarding me for doing my job well. I get to hire and help my friends in order for all of us to do our job well.
But as soon as John Skipper left ESPN and he came over and became the CEO of MetalArk, helping us create the business of this and getting the DraftKings deal that is a pioneering deal in the industry, I realized that we were in trouble, and the last straw on that for people who do not know, there were a number of things politically happening.
I wasn't allowed to talk about the things that I wanted to. There was interference, there were issues, and then the last straw on that was during layoffs, one time they just come in and didn't even tell me they were letting go of my best friend's son, and nobody was even informing me until after it happened. And so,
I rehired him at a dollar more than whatever it is that they were paying him, and I kept him on air, and that's when the whole thing just blew up. What was the job that Chris had when he was rehired, Chris? He was so bad at it.
I mean, come on.
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Chapter 6: What was the significance of the 'Six Billboards Outside Akron' stunt?
He was so bad at it. He was so bad at it. He was my assistant, allegedly, but I couldn't get a hold of him.
Yeah, that was not my strength.
I'm way better at my job now, believe it or not. The way to prove that ESPN made a mistake firing Chris was for Dan to put him in a job in which he was absolutely terrible.
The thing about that, though, is that as a symbol or a hood ornament on what we're doing, I would say it ended up being a huge favor that ESPN did me because I never would have even imagined, never mind done, I never would have imagined that.
doing any of what happened next, which is to create a safe space for the people I care about and the things I care about in a world that I now don't recognize and didn't see coming because it's so unsafe. I did not see any of this happening five years ago. When I say any of it, I mean this company, but I mean America too. I did not see any of this coming and happening to the media.
Well, I think it's really important to point out that, like, why do I feel protected and certainly funded, but also emboldened to take on figures that have a lot more money than all of us combined, multiple times over in billionaire owners and at times the actual U.S. government and...
various celebrities, on and on and on, is because of the stuff that Dan actually was kind of coercing Chris to do while you guys were at ESPN. That was the spirit, was even inside of the company that was paying you, you would be willing to do things that made it uncomfortable for those people who were in charge.
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Chapter 7: Why is the separation between journalism and business crucial?
And so the thing I think of is a video that is not even of Kris. It's of Kris dressed as a battery. I'd like to play that for everybody who's not seen this before. I've got a battery back there. It is a corporate sponsor. I want to, on air, take that battery down there myself and stand in the crowd behind first take. Billy and Stugatz can handle whatever it is that we have to do there.
I want to do that. Do I have permission to take... I want to put in the first take shot both me... I'm not asking... I'm asking your assessment.
Dude, dude. Is he, uh...
authority given to me as eternal yes man to one day in levitard knock yourself out pal all right let's go uh battery we're going down there chris uh you helped the battery get down there the battery has entered the shot yeah okay they have cut away they have derrick henry on first take right now this is not terrestrial radio norms where you tell your audience to tune away supplementally
If you watch, there is a battery and a Dan Levitard at a bar. Jiggling. I believe ordering a drink in front of some bikini beach goers that are sitting at the edge of the Cleveland pool.
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Chapter 8: What is the future vision for journalism as discussed in this episode?
It's amazing, the visual. Oh, there is a producer trying to stop Dan Levitard right now. Oh, no, this is getting testy. Oh, my God. Dan is in his face. Oh, boy. Are you seeing this? This is a better idea. Forget about a happy place. Play-by-play of Dan and the security guard. Oh, my. This is awkward as all get out.
All right. So me and Billy. This is the absolute strangest guy on.
Oh, God. I remember that so vividly. Cannot underestimate how many bikini-clad beachgoers, or whatever Mike Ryan said there, were actually at the edge of the pool right in front of Chris, also teetering on the edge of many things at that point in his life, it seems.
The thing that I remember there, and Chris is doing the happy hands of the battery now, is that there was a black screen in front of his face, and I could see out of the side of my eye, as I was yelling at the security guard, that he looked terrified inside of the costume, but there was no evidence of that because his hands kept moving happily the way a mascot does, so he stayed in character as a mascot, but he was indeed scared.
correct oh i was very scared what i remember most about that was in the stairwell before we walked down i dan kind of just checked in with me of like hey we're going down here but you're cool like you're good with this right and i hit him with like the bad boys dan we ride together we die together like i legitimately said that verbatim i'm like i'm in this with you let's go
You know what I was actually pissed off about there? It's that First Take came down here and I'd been asking for years to have our staff be able to have some of the continental breakfast that they put out. And they told me it's $11 a day each person, Dan, if you want to do that. Then First Take comes down here and they just start eating all the muffins and they don't have to pay for anything.
And so that's where it started. And then they wouldn't let us interact with their show. And so I just got pissed off and made a mess. Yes, you made a mountain out of the muffins.
Life's better with a story.
Hey, Derek Van Ryver here, host of Rates and Barrels, the home for baseball podcasting at The Athletic. In baseball, numbers are everywhere, but they're not just numbers. For me and my co-host, Eno Saris, they're the keys to solving the most fun problem in sports.
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