I've personally become less interested over time in Zach Lowe because his role has changed since he first came on the scene as a thoughtful basketball commenter. As he's become more popular, he's gotten more sources, more relationships on the "inside," and all that information hasn't improved his analysis or (IMO) his appeal. It's kind of done the opposite. He's more interested in being a "knower" than being a "sharer", which is an issue when you're supposed to be a journalist. For example, he's happy to tell you that he KNOWS what happened to Andrew Wiggins, but he's not going to tell it to you to protect his sources. He wants you to KNOW that he's heard a lot of trade scuttlebutt, but he won't go into detail about it for you, the basketball fan. He'll share some things that he thinks will happen, but he wants to make sure you know that none of it is sourced, like we're to seriously believe he's not had conversations about it with anyone in the league. As an analyst, he doesn't really criticize players or teams - I'm staring right at his Joel Embiid and Luka Doncic coverage - which makes any praise he has less impactful because it's so indiscriminate. When I listen to his podcast - happening less and less recently - I find myself wondering afterward why I spent any time at all on it since I rarely hear a counterintuitive or interesting thought come out of his mouth. He seems to possess all this information - and he'll remind you again and again of this - but it has no value to anyone but him. I find it to be a really annoying trait and it makes a ton of his content incredibly milquetoast. I know I'm likely in the minority (and, yes, he seems like a really nice person) but I'm not surprised that they're moving on because I'm tuning him out and I'm actually a big basketball fan - I just get my insights from other people at this point.
Yeah I used to listen to his podcast pretty regularly, the last year or so I rarely listened though.
Do hope it’s because of the espn environment than his development, and now he’s out of it he will go back, I mean if he does podcasts elsewhere I will definitely go back to listening at the start to see if it’s good again
The first thing to remember, if you regularly read Zach Lowe and if you subscribe this substack and especially if you are reading this specific comment, you are not the normal NBA viewer/customer who ESPN is focused on.
Great piece. I noticed this curious bit of information yesterday while listening to the final Lowe Post but haven't seen it mentioned anywhere else.
During his convo with JJ Redick, Lowe said he got in trouble with ESPN PR for appearing on an Old Man and the Three preseason preview. Lowe didn't ask permission to do the pod - he thought it was internal media because Redick worked for ESPN, but ESPN considered it outside media since it was on Redick's channel.
So, when Redick asked Lowe to hop on his pod to preview the Finals this June, Lowe made Redick promise that, if he became the Lakers head coach, his first pod appearance would be the Lowe Post. Lowe explained on his final pod that he did that as a mea culpa/carrot for ESPN PR. He'd ask for permission ahead of time, using the promised future interview to ensure ESPN gave him approval.
Is it possible that Lowe was meant to be a part of the RG3/Ponder layoffs in August, only ESPN held off until the Lowe/Redick interview happened? Then, once they had their sweet, sweet Lakers content, they were free to dismiss Lowe? (which they did, literally the very next day).
Seems highly plausible, and also pretty messed up, since it gives Lowe less than a month before the season starts to find a new home. Even if he's in high demand, I'm sure that extra six weeks or so would've provided him with more options.
Regarding whether Lowe declined - for me it was more of a shift away from nerdiness when he would talk with Arnovitz and Beck more. He also seemed more self aware about who might be listening, and while generous with his praise, at times it felt obsequious. Maybe getting removed a bit from direct relationships with coaches, GMs and broadcasters will allow him to be a bit more daring. But I continued to like him and listen to his pods throughout. He remained the smartest basketball podcaster for me, even if off his peak.
I can tell you this. I follow a lot of professional handicappers and they all were huge consumer's of Zach Lowe content and expressed similar outrage at his being let go. His content was too substantive to not be read by people gambling money on NBA games.
yeah, just because it isn't explicitly writing about gambling doesn't mean it wasn't insanely useful.
Like if a person writes about oil outputs in the US. Even though the person didn't write it with a focus on investing, that is still incredibly useful information.
I might be in the minority, but I thought he was kind of bad as a Podcaster. Seemed like he was trying to float between Nate Duncan and No Dunks. He can do the former, but his attempts at humor were painful. But overall he is and has been an excellent NBA contributor.
I just don't know if he's worth his salary. I think you can get 80% of the value of his analysis/writing basically for free. There is a large supply of people who want to do good analysis and create content. Same situation as most TV hosts. Lots of people want to be on TV and talking for a while just isn't that hard.
There are a few people who drive ratings. Everyone else is fungible and the supply is high, which means wages will be low(e).
dont disagree with anything you said but i feel like every non-comedian podcast always tries to be funny and usually fails, Ethan included (sorry Ethan but its something afflicting nearly every sports writer so don't feel too bad)
I legit don't understand this whole rating decline that Ethan has been going on for at least 5 years. He tries to have it both ways. Yes, NBA rating are going down, ok, but every streaming service and TV company is willing to pay through the nose for the rights. How does he square this circle?
Are Apple, ESPN, Amazon, etc. all overvaluing content? Maybe, and I would believe that answer way more if the NBA rights deals were signed 2-3 years ago when every tech company was lighting money on fire trying to get a slice of Netflix's pie, but that era is clearly over as all these companies are now focused on profitability rather than growth.
So why would ESPN pay so much for NBA rights if ratings are on the decline? Because you can't compare NBA ratings without looking at the entire market and ratings for TV are down more overall than they are for the NBA. So, relative to the market, NBA's market share is going up, and advertisers need to spend their budget somewhere and now ESPN gets a bigger piece of that advertising budget.
Not to mention that while Disney got billions of carriage fees from Cable Companies having ESPN. They can recreate some of that revenue by including ESPN in Disney Plus and capture all of the revenue and profit of the subscription. It will definitely be less than what the carriage fees revenue once was at ESPN's height, but with the invention of streaming that was always going to go away.
Both things can be true. This is how bubbles happen, and bubbles always burst. Your comment is like someone in 2008 pointing out the concerning underlying metrics pertaining to subprime loans and you're responding with "But people are still buying McMansions in Nevada for $400,000 a pop!!"
this is very true, I could be wrong and they could all be overvaluing NBA rights by a huge margin! But basising that conclusion on just looking at the decline of NBA ratings without looking at the overall market is bad analysis and I think Ethan has this blind spot because of his correct argument that no one is talking about the fact that ratings for the NBA are going down and that is a bad thing for the long term health of the league.
I don't think he's looking at the decline in ratings without looking at the overall market, though. He's pointing out that ratings are bad even for this market. That some companies like WB and Disney are willing to shell out billions as some sort last death rattle for cable doesn't really tell us anything about how happy they are with the ratings; it just tells us that they're desperate. And I fear for the league that in ten years time can only negotiate with massive tech companies who could take or leave their games without noticing a change in revenue.
My sense is that the networks need legitimate long term brands to justify dwindling cable package fees and perhaps just better long term brand visibility to consumers. When you don't "own" major properties and aren't know for a particular strength (ex. HBO, Disney), it's really hard to compete. If you're at least known as the NBA channel, that helps in this but also operational volatility. Perhaps the content is overpriced, but it's not volatile in terms of production and needing to make green light/cancellation decisions every year, like with TV shows. If NBA content can take 25% (random number) of your prime time schedule, there's a certain value in reducing administrative overhead and not needing to cover those time slots.
The solution to the apparent contradiction here is that ESPN is the middleman between the product (NBA) and the consumer (fans), and their margin is getting squeezed. They are paying more dollars for the product but getting paid less dollars by consumers. Disney had more leverage in the TV bundle days when everyone needed all their content. Now that consumers can pick and choose, the leagues have leverage by being the only reason anyone pays for live TV, so they can extract almost all of the consumer value leaving ESPN and TNT with crumbs.
But Ethan is right the long term trend of declining ratings in the US is a huge issue for the NBA and it is going to hurt the long term profitability of the league. As a fan, I am not sure why I should care if the owners and players are splitting a few billion dollars less but they definitely should care.
Zach Lowe's enthusiasm for the NBA was something to truly marvel at. As I saw him on TV more and more, I felt like his truly unique abilities started to get a bit muted. A lot of you commenting here have a similar take to what I'm already sharing, but Zach Lowe did appear too eager to please the powerful people within NBA circles. He was a bit like this already on his podcast, but "TV Zach Lowe" just wasn't that interesting.
Somehow Brian Windhorst still manages to be a ubiquitous presence when it comes to the NBA, but still keeps his authenticity. I would attribute this to a number of factors, namely he was always made fun of for his weight. With that, Windy was able to turn his liability into an asset, and really does not seem to care nearly as much if people like him or not the way Zach Lowe always has.
Also, (if he is reading this) the next podcast Lowe creates should be "Lowe's 3 point podcast", as he was always explaining why the 3 point revolution made so much sense. Him being the host of the "Lowe Post" obviously had a ring to it, but Zack Lowe helped shape public opinion around the 3 point shot, which largely made the post-up game largely antiquated.
And yes if he does run with this, I want naming rights where I'm listed as a producer of his newest show!
All great comments here. I thought Zack was worth reading and listening too. I also felt he was a good human who had a good perspective on sports role in life.I also liked when guests on his show said things he disagreed with he would give his side which was reasoned and backed with data. I remember when Max Kellerman was trashing Steph’s playoff’s performance ( before he personally destroyed the Celtics in 22) and Zack point by point refuted him politely. I’ll always follow Zack.
There are a number of outlets where Zach would be a major acquisition to upgrade their basketball coverage. But the question is the quality of any ESPN studio shows is awful. It's the same people on all these shows except for McAfee. Any time of day except for Mcafee's show it's Groundhog Day
No one watches studio shows for actual analysis, they watch it to be entertained.
People can't bemoan the low level analysis of studio shows, and then praise the TNT crew as the best in the business because they are 100% vibes and zero analysis.
the reason people like TNT is because they talk ball, doesn't matter if its considered analysis or vibes, anything is better than the ESPN crews talking about the Lakers even when they're irrelevant or who the hot free agents will be in 6 months. TNT crew will always try to talk about what will happen or has happened in the game or series in questions, which is awesome
That is a very interesting article Freddie links to in The Verge about the “alarm” of respected professionals at Harvard and elsewhere about “Dr. TikTok” causing an uptick in mistaken self-diagnoses of ADHD and DID. I’ll admit to being surprised—even confused—by that view given my understanding that the same professionals are widely critical of rapid-onset gender dysphoria, which attributes at least part of the increase in adolescent gender distress to similar social contagion.
I've personally become less interested over time in Zach Lowe because his role has changed since he first came on the scene as a thoughtful basketball commenter. As he's become more popular, he's gotten more sources, more relationships on the "inside," and all that information hasn't improved his analysis or (IMO) his appeal. It's kind of done the opposite. He's more interested in being a "knower" than being a "sharer", which is an issue when you're supposed to be a journalist. For example, he's happy to tell you that he KNOWS what happened to Andrew Wiggins, but he's not going to tell it to you to protect his sources. He wants you to KNOW that he's heard a lot of trade scuttlebutt, but he won't go into detail about it for you, the basketball fan. He'll share some things that he thinks will happen, but he wants to make sure you know that none of it is sourced, like we're to seriously believe he's not had conversations about it with anyone in the league. As an analyst, he doesn't really criticize players or teams - I'm staring right at his Joel Embiid and Luka Doncic coverage - which makes any praise he has less impactful because it's so indiscriminate. When I listen to his podcast - happening less and less recently - I find myself wondering afterward why I spent any time at all on it since I rarely hear a counterintuitive or interesting thought come out of his mouth. He seems to possess all this information - and he'll remind you again and again of this - but it has no value to anyone but him. I find it to be a really annoying trait and it makes a ton of his content incredibly milquetoast. I know I'm likely in the minority (and, yes, he seems like a really nice person) but I'm not surprised that they're moving on because I'm tuning him out and I'm actually a big basketball fan - I just get my insights from other people at this point.
Completely agree. Checked out of him a while ago - he’s a great analyst but he’s afraid of rocking the boat or saying anything controversial.
And maybe even more unpopular - I don’t think his objective reach justified his large salary, no matter how much NBA social media is outraged at this.
Yeah I used to listen to his podcast pretty regularly, the last year or so I rarely listened though.
Do hope it’s because of the espn environment than his development, and now he’s out of it he will go back, I mean if he does podcasts elsewhere I will definitely go back to listening at the start to see if it’s good again
The first thing to remember, if you regularly read Zach Lowe and if you subscribe this substack and especially if you are reading this specific comment, you are not the normal NBA viewer/customer who ESPN is focused on.
That’s actually what’s wrong with ESPN. And why they are losing viewers
THE REASON THEY ARE LOSING VIEWERS IS BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT CATERING ENOUGH TO SPECIFICALLY MY TASTES.
Factual
Great piece. I noticed this curious bit of information yesterday while listening to the final Lowe Post but haven't seen it mentioned anywhere else.
During his convo with JJ Redick, Lowe said he got in trouble with ESPN PR for appearing on an Old Man and the Three preseason preview. Lowe didn't ask permission to do the pod - he thought it was internal media because Redick worked for ESPN, but ESPN considered it outside media since it was on Redick's channel.
So, when Redick asked Lowe to hop on his pod to preview the Finals this June, Lowe made Redick promise that, if he became the Lakers head coach, his first pod appearance would be the Lowe Post. Lowe explained on his final pod that he did that as a mea culpa/carrot for ESPN PR. He'd ask for permission ahead of time, using the promised future interview to ensure ESPN gave him approval.
Is it possible that Lowe was meant to be a part of the RG3/Ponder layoffs in August, only ESPN held off until the Lowe/Redick interview happened? Then, once they had their sweet, sweet Lakers content, they were free to dismiss Lowe? (which they did, literally the very next day).
Seems highly plausible, and also pretty messed up, since it gives Lowe less than a month before the season starts to find a new home. Even if he's in high demand, I'm sure that extra six weeks or so would've provided him with more options.
interesting theory
Grantland might be the only website I ever consumed holistically. What a time.
I was so sad when they shut it down. The stable of writing talent they put together was insane.
I am guessing you were pre kids at the time.
You are correct
Suddenly hearing you read my comment, in full, was one of the more surprising and exhilarating experiences of my recent life.
Hearing it on the back end of an all-nighter while flying in my Dodge Charger along a two-lane, road in rural Louisiana made it all the more sweeter
Regarding whether Lowe declined - for me it was more of a shift away from nerdiness when he would talk with Arnovitz and Beck more. He also seemed more self aware about who might be listening, and while generous with his praise, at times it felt obsequious. Maybe getting removed a bit from direct relationships with coaches, GMs and broadcasters will allow him to be a bit more daring. But I continued to like him and listen to his pods throughout. He remained the smartest basketball podcaster for me, even if off his peak.
The Arnovitz / Beck podcasts were great and those were always must-listens
I can tell you this. I follow a lot of professional handicappers and they all were huge consumer's of Zach Lowe content and expressed similar outrage at his being let go. His content was too substantive to not be read by people gambling money on NBA games.
yeah, just because it isn't explicitly writing about gambling doesn't mean it wasn't insanely useful.
Like if a person writes about oil outputs in the US. Even though the person didn't write it with a focus on investing, that is still incredibly useful information.
I might be in the minority, but I thought he was kind of bad as a Podcaster. Seemed like he was trying to float between Nate Duncan and No Dunks. He can do the former, but his attempts at humor were painful. But overall he is and has been an excellent NBA contributor.
I just don't know if he's worth his salary. I think you can get 80% of the value of his analysis/writing basically for free. There is a large supply of people who want to do good analysis and create content. Same situation as most TV hosts. Lots of people want to be on TV and talking for a while just isn't that hard.
There are a few people who drive ratings. Everyone else is fungible and the supply is high, which means wages will be low(e).
dont disagree with anything you said but i feel like every non-comedian podcast always tries to be funny and usually fails, Ethan included (sorry Ethan but its something afflicting nearly every sports writer so don't feel too bad)
I like Lowe but I do have to agree that his attempts at humor are pretty painful
If this isn't a sign that ESPN has entered the Managed Decline phase of its existence then I don't know what is.
I legit don't understand this whole rating decline that Ethan has been going on for at least 5 years. He tries to have it both ways. Yes, NBA rating are going down, ok, but every streaming service and TV company is willing to pay through the nose for the rights. How does he square this circle?
Are Apple, ESPN, Amazon, etc. all overvaluing content? Maybe, and I would believe that answer way more if the NBA rights deals were signed 2-3 years ago when every tech company was lighting money on fire trying to get a slice of Netflix's pie, but that era is clearly over as all these companies are now focused on profitability rather than growth.
So why would ESPN pay so much for NBA rights if ratings are on the decline? Because you can't compare NBA ratings without looking at the entire market and ratings for TV are down more overall than they are for the NBA. So, relative to the market, NBA's market share is going up, and advertisers need to spend their budget somewhere and now ESPN gets a bigger piece of that advertising budget.
Not to mention that while Disney got billions of carriage fees from Cable Companies having ESPN. They can recreate some of that revenue by including ESPN in Disney Plus and capture all of the revenue and profit of the subscription. It will definitely be less than what the carriage fees revenue once was at ESPN's height, but with the invention of streaming that was always going to go away.
Both things can be true. This is how bubbles happen, and bubbles always burst. Your comment is like someone in 2008 pointing out the concerning underlying metrics pertaining to subprime loans and you're responding with "But people are still buying McMansions in Nevada for $400,000 a pop!!"
this is very true, I could be wrong and they could all be overvaluing NBA rights by a huge margin! But basising that conclusion on just looking at the decline of NBA ratings without looking at the overall market is bad analysis and I think Ethan has this blind spot because of his correct argument that no one is talking about the fact that ratings for the NBA are going down and that is a bad thing for the long term health of the league.
I don't think he's looking at the decline in ratings without looking at the overall market, though. He's pointing out that ratings are bad even for this market. That some companies like WB and Disney are willing to shell out billions as some sort last death rattle for cable doesn't really tell us anything about how happy they are with the ratings; it just tells us that they're desperate. And I fear for the league that in ten years time can only negotiate with massive tech companies who could take or leave their games without noticing a change in revenue.
My sense is that the networks need legitimate long term brands to justify dwindling cable package fees and perhaps just better long term brand visibility to consumers. When you don't "own" major properties and aren't know for a particular strength (ex. HBO, Disney), it's really hard to compete. If you're at least known as the NBA channel, that helps in this but also operational volatility. Perhaps the content is overpriced, but it's not volatile in terms of production and needing to make green light/cancellation decisions every year, like with TV shows. If NBA content can take 25% (random number) of your prime time schedule, there's a certain value in reducing administrative overhead and not needing to cover those time slots.
The solution to the apparent contradiction here is that ESPN is the middleman between the product (NBA) and the consumer (fans), and their margin is getting squeezed. They are paying more dollars for the product but getting paid less dollars by consumers. Disney had more leverage in the TV bundle days when everyone needed all their content. Now that consumers can pick and choose, the leagues have leverage by being the only reason anyone pays for live TV, so they can extract almost all of the consumer value leaving ESPN and TNT with crumbs.
Yes, to all of this.
But Ethan is right the long term trend of declining ratings in the US is a huge issue for the NBA and it is going to hurt the long term profitability of the league. As a fan, I am not sure why I should care if the owners and players are splitting a few billion dollars less but they definitely should care.
Zach Lowe's enthusiasm for the NBA was something to truly marvel at. As I saw him on TV more and more, I felt like his truly unique abilities started to get a bit muted. A lot of you commenting here have a similar take to what I'm already sharing, but Zach Lowe did appear too eager to please the powerful people within NBA circles. He was a bit like this already on his podcast, but "TV Zach Lowe" just wasn't that interesting.
Somehow Brian Windhorst still manages to be a ubiquitous presence when it comes to the NBA, but still keeps his authenticity. I would attribute this to a number of factors, namely he was always made fun of for his weight. With that, Windy was able to turn his liability into an asset, and really does not seem to care nearly as much if people like him or not the way Zach Lowe always has.
Also, (if he is reading this) the next podcast Lowe creates should be "Lowe's 3 point podcast", as he was always explaining why the 3 point revolution made so much sense. Him being the host of the "Lowe Post" obviously had a ring to it, but Zack Lowe helped shape public opinion around the 3 point shot, which largely made the post-up game largely antiquated.
And yes if he does run with this, I want naming rights where I'm listed as a producer of his newest show!
All great comments here. I thought Zack was worth reading and listening too. I also felt he was a good human who had a good perspective on sports role in life.I also liked when guests on his show said things he disagreed with he would give his side which was reasoned and backed with data. I remember when Max Kellerman was trashing Steph’s playoff’s performance ( before he personally destroyed the Celtics in 22) and Zack point by point refuted him politely. I’ll always follow Zack.
Any chance he could land at NBC or Amazon as one of the faces of their NBA coverage?
There are a number of outlets where Zach would be a major acquisition to upgrade their basketball coverage. But the question is the quality of any ESPN studio shows is awful. It's the same people on all these shows except for McAfee. Any time of day except for Mcafee's show it's Groundhog Day
No one watches studio shows for actual analysis, they watch it to be entertained.
People can't bemoan the low level analysis of studio shows, and then praise the TNT crew as the best in the business because they are 100% vibes and zero analysis.
the reason people like TNT is because they talk ball, doesn't matter if its considered analysis or vibes, anything is better than the ESPN crews talking about the Lakers even when they're irrelevant or who the hot free agents will be in 6 months. TNT crew will always try to talk about what will happen or has happened in the game or series in questions, which is awesome
Great take, Ethan. Selfishly, I want Zach to find a new home tomorrow. But I agree that him taking a break is probably better for the long term.
That is a very interesting article Freddie links to in The Verge about the “alarm” of respected professionals at Harvard and elsewhere about “Dr. TikTok” causing an uptick in mistaken self-diagnoses of ADHD and DID. I’ll admit to being surprised—even confused—by that view given my understanding that the same professionals are widely critical of rapid-onset gender dysphoria, which attributes at least part of the increase in adolescent gender distress to similar social contagion.