Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: Why is Stugotz's name being removed from the show?
So this is many months overdue, but I am here to announce, unfortunately, that Stugatz's name is going to have to come off the show.
We're going to remain a loud, vibrant, colorful thing, but our imaging has gone stale and no longer reflecting the show in its current form, so it'll be different when we return to work on Monday with the knowledge that wherever there's pain, there's always an invitation to grow.
If I'm being totally honest, though, the delay in removing his name and the silence surrounding it has been because I've been desperately trying to find all the ways to prevent and avoid it. It's a costume I've been wearing for almost a year now, quietly, and it is even itchier and more uncomfortable than the New York Knicks ones I've been wearing lately. Feels about as clownish, too.
This is not the correct way to say goodbye after more than two decades with him. So he and I will continue to try to figure out a reunion. And I remain hopeful he'll continue to be a part of what we're doing eventually and know he'll always be welcome. But I got to admit now, we are not what we once were. Pretending otherwise is not loyalty.
Chapter 2: What changes are being made to the show's format and imaging?
It's denial. While we're here though, I would like to explain some things about where we've been, where we are, and where we're going with this truly breathtaking thing you've allowed us to build here over nearly 22 years. It's legitimately hard to fathom that we now have a national media company in the heart of my hometown, a stable media thing in the most unstable media climate of my lifetime.
100% independent, a safe creative space for people I care about to keep creating, inventing, grinding, pushing. We're somehow bigger than we've ever been after leaving the worldwide leader in sports. Available in more places, reaching more people, having somehow grown from a little radio show that was once on just one AM station in Miami.
We now have offices in New York where Pablo Torre and his team have now won a Pulitzer Prize that's lit a fire across every corner of this company to look hard at what we're making and make it better, this show included. All of that would have seemed almost totally impossible to me once upon a time. Totally impossible, not even a dream, but it's all so for one reason above all others.
You, this is such an intimate thing we do every day, living inside your head. Some of you have been with us 10, 20 years. I do not have a lot of relationships like that in my life, but the ones that are that long, They're the most meaningful. You have a lot of entertainment options more than ever.
And I'm guessing you don't have a lot of entertainment relationships that require the investment this one does. So we're in a committed relationship, you and us, and I know that comes with expectations and responsibilities for me. But here's what I've learned about long-term commitment. The ones that last are not the ones that stay exactly the same.
The moment you stop growing together is the moment you start growing apart. If we just kept doing exactly what we did from day one, you would be right to wonder if we were really paying attention to the way you care or your investment at all. The most consistent thing about our show has never been how or when or why people leave.
The most consistent thing about our show is that somehow you stay no matter the storm. We've changed studios three times. We've changed executive producers four. Some of you have been with us long enough to remember a time when the producers did not speak at all.
There has been upheaval all around us for more than 20 years, most of it concealed in the name of protecting the escape of the laughter. But I'd argue it's very rare to endure in something as competitive as entertainment for this long without upheaval.
For those of you who want this show to feel as it always has, familiar and comfortable as your favorite chair, I get it, I understand, but I'm afraid this is where our drift begins. The single surest way, I believe, to destroy anything or anyone you care about is to stop building with them. Everything from learning to love can die without a commitment to growth.
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