The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Local Hour: Goodbye Billy, Hello Stevie (feat. Some Hot Guy Who Used To Work Here)
17 Oct 2025
Chapter 1: What is the significance of Billy's last day on the show?
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Smirnoff!
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Chapter 2: How did Billy's first words on air impact the show?
Always drink your JƤgermeister ice cold. That's the rule. Everything else is merely a suggestion. Everything else? Everything else. Wearing clean underwear every day? Well, that's just a personal decision. Brushing your teeth? Obviously smart, but not a rule. Never pee-pee on an electric fence.
Okay, maybe there are two rules, but the one that is 100% that I insist on completely, Jagermeister must be drank ice cold. Or don't drink it at all. Damn, that's cold.
Exactly. You're finally starting to get it. Drink responsibly. Jagermeister liqueur, 35% alcohol by volume, imported by Mass Jagermeister U.S., White Plains, New York. Now what? This doesn't qualify.
This does not qualify.
It's got to be huge breaking news. It's not just sniffing around Bill Belichick. He's a voyeur at this point. This is getting weird. It's not a big episode unless it means there.
That's true. But it is a pretty ridiculous episode.
I mean, it's a good find.
The lost tapes and whatnot. It's a great find. But you know what it is, Mike? It's a window into... how the power dynamics at play. Because I think all this time we've been saying it's Jordan and she's running the stuff or whatever. And according to this episode, it's a Game of Thrones. It's not just her, because Mike Lombardi's in there, too. And he's got the ear, and he's pulling.
But at the same time, him and Jordan don't like each other. And so it's like a competition for the ear of the king. So it's a facet. How long is this thing going to blow?
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Chapter 3: What challenges did Billy face during his time in Bristol?
Absolutely.
nuked any relationship I have with the Clippers.
Yeah, and you didn't have any sense that that was going to happen when you sat down that day, did you? No, I didn't know what it was about. I picture me walking into LA, like, hey, what's up, man? To be fair, though, are you really that plugged in with the Clippers? I used to be. He was wearing a Clippers jersey in the episode, and it wasn't a costume.
He wasn't faking it. That was the second episode. That was trolling. What?
No. You're just supporting?
No, I was giving them the benefit of the doubt.
I don't think that that whispering wind qualifies for this episode. I mean, you've heard it. I have not heard the whole episode. I know what it's about. But this should only be for big national breaking news that's going to get everyone talking.
The wind shouldn't blow for anything else. It's not a big breaking news, but it is incredible context to a situation that we're familiar with. and through Pablo's reporting and also what's happened during the season. But now it's like, oh, now I get what the power dynamics at play are, and that's what makes it really interesting.
I am told, Chris, that a lot of people here who don't know necessarily how they want to express their feelings toward Billy want to do so through song. That Jeremy says that he wants to say goodbye. He's not supposed to be in today. Nobody asked him to come in. Billy didn't ask him to be in. I definitely didn't ask for a Jeremy song today. Jeremy wants to serenade Billy with song on his last day?
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Chapter 4: What is the story behind Billy's purposeful self-sabotage?
I don't want Flacco in the game. I'm afraid of the veteran quarterback.
You know, to be honest, it was shocking to me. Andrew Berry must be a lot smarter than me or us because it doesn't make sense to me to trade a quarterback that you think enough of to make your opening day starter to a division opponent that's hurting in that area. But that's just my personal feelings.
He's like, hey, Browns, why are you training him to the Bengals? He said it before the game, and look what we saw.
That's as afraid as we've ever heard that man. That man who's never had a losing season in our most violent sport, who wins every season. We've never heard of him afraid of anybody except clearly Joe Flacco. Like, make no mistake about it, because weeks before that he told us, yeah, we were trying to keep their other young quarterback healthy because we didn't want to see Flacco.
A year ago, we were playing in Indianapolis, man, and I commented to the guys that, you know, keep Richardson upright. Don't put Flacco in the game. And, you know, Flacco ended up in the game.
Has someone ever won a comeback player of the year because of the comeback within one singular season? He's just coming back from being with the Browns. Do you know how hard it is to be better than the comeback player that you already are that you won over a guy who died on the field and came back? Talk about breathing life into franchises. That's what Joe Flacco does.
A breath of fresh air, a breath of new life for NFL franchises. Tone, the Bengals now are in play.
They're back, baby.
All of a sudden, we're all like three and four. Can he get them to burrow? Can Flacco just get them to burrow? The bridge quarterback we needed, the 40-year-old.
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Chapter 5: How did Billy's open seat auditions unfold?
You can if you're an idiot. All right, moving on. No, no, no, no. You want to keep it right here? No, I don't want to. That's the first time we ever spoke. How many?
And then there was a texter. The next segment, people were not happy with Billy.
Dexter writes in, I believe we can all agree with this, Billy is the worst. Billy just uttered a couple of syllables there, but already you have turned on him. His radio debut, I'm pretty sure that was Billy's radio debut on our program. He uttered about four syllables total. I thought he was efficient and funny. People don't want to hear from anybody. Who isn't us?
They have turned on Billy for using the same microphone that they complain that Mike Ryan sometimes turns on. Boy, things have gotten out of control around here in terms of how much the people speak. Billy, how many shows did you go without speaking? How many shows did you work here? Two years. Like, plus. He used to have to earn. Yeah. I was on his show for two plus years before I said anything.
Sitting in the corner with Stevie, who could barely log the show. Just answering the phone, even that I'd have to type in the description. That was quite the producer battle. Stevie. King of the Mountain, who wants it, boys? You or Stevie? And you guys just all, you and Stugat just wanted to be Stevie's friend the whole time. You're like, man, Stevie's so hot.
I'm like, what's wrong with you guys?
I invited Stevie to my wedding. I don't feel like it's fair to group me and you and Stugatz thought that Stevie was so hot. He was so bad. But we just love the vibes. He's like, hey, man, I forgot to log the show today. You do you, Stevie. You're doing great.
You guys treated him also like Joe was like, how are the ladies treating you, Stevie?
He's like, ah, I live this weekend. Like, ah, Stevie. His dad was like friends with Stugatz. Stevie! Vibes! He works hard.
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Chapter 6: What nostalgic moments were shared about Billy's journey?
This is nonsense. This is the Don Levitard Show with the Stugatz.
Let's get some video here of Beeple and also more recently, right? Because Billy and Zazz had a moment the other day that I want to replay because I'm pretty sure it was the introduction of the mouthpieces. The Dentek bucket mouthpiece, yeah? Yeah, but let's play some of that back. Going back to the Clevelander, let's celebrate Beeple for a second. It's something that we can make happen, right?
Bro, you take a turnover chain, you put on the Cuban flag beanie, and that's it. You walk out with Jorge, and that's it.
Bing, bong, boom.
You've got to give him a Cuban flag beanie. He's going to quit before the fight even starts because he's going to see what's up. As soon as you walk to the ring with him, you take a gasuela, you start making, let me fight it. Hold on a second. You don't have this you got you don't have this in you you just broke something All right, so I'm gonna train with Guillermo
I mean, how do I handle today weaving between sports and celebrating what is obviously an emotional last day for all of us without allowing the emotion to get in the way of an emotional last day for all of us?
Wait, whose last day is it? Eve's. I know. I saw that email. I was crushed. Shout out to Eve Wolf. Thank you for your service.
We should have made this a Stevie Coltune tribute show.
Oh, my God. I want to learn more about the Stevie catch. I've never heard of him.
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Chapter 7: How did the team react to Billy's emotional farewell?
It dawned on me that I used to work at the same company as Kevin Negande. I'm like, what a weird time. I don't feel like I was a member of ESPN all that much because we were working in the Clevelander. But I'm like, yeah, it's my old coworker, Kevin Negande. It was weird. Well, you've heard Billy.
Billy walking around Bristol and walking around a corner and seeing Linda Cohn, I'm guessing, is like Billy's children walking around Disney World and seeing Mickey Mouse at the breakfast. No, they're terrified of the characters. Kids are scared of those things.
Kids are weird, man.
It really is. They talk about Mickey, Mickey, Minnie, Minnie, then they go see Mickey, Minnie, they start crying.
It's like, Jesus Christ. My earliest, literally, well, one of my earliest memories, went to Disney World, saw Goofy, wouldn't shake his hand because I thought he was going to bite it. I was two years old. I was 37. I got the ball, I know.
I was in the son's front office at the time.
This is last week.
Billy, I'd like to hear more stories about you as the person who didn't speak on air here for two years, walking around Bristol for the first time, feeling disoriented because you didn't actually feel that we were a part of anything that ESPN was because we didn't feel like we belonged up there in the big leagues, I guess. Those are different eras.
We ended up at ESPN after I had already been talking. Bristol, though, was, I mean, I remember some Bristol memories that we had. We went on a trip that we had a meeting. Me and Roy showed up at the meeting. Chris was nowhere to be found. We then found him in the commissary, the eating area.
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Chapter 8: What are the plans for the future of the show after Billy?
But Billy was an employee.
So is everyone else. You have to be an employee to be in the building. I know, but why wouldn't employees be like if somebody in our building, not that we're ESPN, but if you needed to walk into one of our studios, people would walk in and out of our studios. And is it because it's this precious heirloom that that set is a recognizable set?
And so no employee is allowed on it without like a frisking and you got to go through an X-ray and you got to go through beautification.
bureaucracy and security.
Now you get it. I mean, you could stumble onto the set, but you had to keep walking. But we definitely were not going to be using the set to tell people the thingamajig was Victor Oladipo. I have now seen over the course of this week a couple of times, and I did not know it before seeing it a couple of times, though I could have suspected it. But I did believe in you, and I can be naive this way.
You clearly pulled that ladder over during your Dancing with the Stars update.
Dancing with the Stars update.
Absolutely pulled the ladder.
It almost killed you, by the way. Oh, Stevie's on FaceTime. Stevie's on FaceTime, Dan. Stevie, Amin says what's up. Come back, Stevie.
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