House of Strauss

If you’re a baseball fan, you’ve probably heard of Driveline founder Kyle Boddy. If not, here’s your intro to one of the most revolutionary figures in sports, and a great podcast guest to boot. Kyle’s revolution is taking the Moneyball hunt for market inefficiency to the realm of improving players. After demonstrating an impressive proof of concept with pitching and hitting, he’s taking his storie...

We had to have Ryan Glasspiegel of the New York Post on to discuss Disney/ESPN vs. Charter, the face off that might kill sports viewership as we know it. Or get resolved soon. Ryan has a take on his initial take and many other takes. We get into it. Topics include but aren’t limited to: * Why Charter has leverage over ESPN * Why Ryan thinks this gets resolved * Is there an ideological component to...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.houseofstrauss.com Our favorite guest is here (don’t tell the others), prompted by a certain Substacker’s contention that there’s negative demand for sports writers to engage in conventional political commentary. Wos is the ideal guy for this topic because he somehow does both sports and political talk while retaining the goodwill o...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.houseofstrauss.com And now for a man who needs no introduction, but we will be re-introducing on account of technical difficulties last time. It’s the great Bob Costas, legendary broadcaster of all things, and current baseball announcer for TBS and the MLB Network. In this episode, we’ve sent over friend of pod and big time WFAN muc...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.houseofstrauss.com A House of Strauss favorite is here for our Second Substack Anniversary ( Subscribe today !). Amin Elhassan of Meadowlark stops by to, among other things, give me a lot of shit. Podcast topics include by are not limited to… * Amin examines whether the Toronto Raptors really stole secrets from the New York Knicks ?...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.houseofstrauss.com Saagar Enjeti is co-host of Breaking Points, one of America’s most popular news podcasts (Congrats to them on reaching 1 million subscribers on Youtube as an independent venture). He’s also a guy with strong opinions on why successful creators shouldn’t sell out. In this pod, we discussed his takes on the corporat...

Tom Haberstroh is the new proprietor of The Finder , a Substack wherein he, well, finds things. He’s always been great at that by the way, dating back to when he joined the (then infamous) Heat Index at ESPN. As long as I’ve known him, Tom’s used research to uncover aspects that others either couldn’t find or didn’t even know to look for. In this episode we take a trip down memory lane, back to wh...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.houseofstrauss.com Jay Caspian Kang of the New Yorker drops by and we revisit his tremendous Barstool Sports New York Times article from 2017. Jay was around the Barstool operation during the infamous blowup of what was to be a merger with ESPN/Disney. Now, there’s a new connection point between the companies as Barstool’s main gamb...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.houseofstrauss.com Ryan Glasspiegel of the New York Post is here and we start by discussing the big sports business story of the day: PENN Entertainment’s exit from Barstool and its entry into ESPN . From there, we can’t resist the USWNT flameout discourse, discourse, discourse….

Like so many people, I was shocked to see Disney separate Nate Silver from his famous website , 538. How could this happen? What’s next for Nate, post-538? We get into it. Our jumping off point is Nate’s new Substack, Silver Bulletin , which I thoroughly enjoy. That site covers topics ranging from poker to politics and, of course, pro sports. So we talk about that, plus discuss what the “ Indigo B...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.houseofstrauss.com In a way it’s been too long because we should have had Kevin O'Connor on sooner. The man delivers coverage that’s both comprehensive and prolific, plus he amiably powers through any backlash. I’m curious about how he does his thing and so I asked. Oh, and we discussed Elon Musk too. The following outline comes cou...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.houseofstrauss.com I enjoy Freddie’s perspective, so when he reached out about appearing on this podcast to talk about, well, podcasting, I was delighted to take him up on it. The end result was a pod about podding, but also so much more regarding the modern content game. Turns out Freddie had some NBA culture angles too. The follow...

A third pod this week and a good one I might add. John Middlekauff, former NFL scout and recreational golf nut, podcasts on both football and golf. In this episode, we draw on that combined expertise to get into whether there’s an overlap between these two worlds. Additionally, we discuss Colin Cowherd’s take on Tony Romo’s golf addiction , get an informed opinion on whether Steph Curry could real...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.houseofstrauss.com Beyond being a noted animal lover, Spike Eskin is one of our favorite guests. As co-host of the successful Rights to Ricky Sanchez podcast and Vice President of Programming at storied WFAN, he’s always got great insights on the world of sports content. This podcast was no exception and I found myself having too go...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.houseofstrauss.com Bomani Jones is here and suddenly without constraints. We had a great conversation on sports industry topics, many of which we were able to get to by using the Damian Lillard/Le Batard/Woj situation as a jumping off point. Oh, and below we’re testing out a more complete podcast outline, put together by Sam Schuett...

Jonathan Rosen wrote a book that can’t really be described in a sentence and I’m not sure it really maps onto anything else I’ve read. It’s a memoir and a horror story and really, you just have to read it. The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions is about Rosen’s childhood best friend, Michael Laudor and what became of this once boy genius. The short story...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.houseofstrauss.com I feel like Big Wos and I podded at the perfect time, given that Monday delivered a lot of sports media drama. Beyond all that, we went long on symbolism-as-politics, the Dame Lillard trade standoff, and, of course, The Bear . * This pod includes but is not limited to discussion of the following topics: * Dan LeBa...

And now for something completely different… Kat Rosenfield is an author and writer who often boldly covers matters of cultural controversy. So what does this podcast have to do with sports? Not much, beyond the following: So many people I ran into at NBA Summer League couldn’t shut up about Jonah Hill . Given that Kat has covered the Hill situation on her podcast, I wanted her additional takes on...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.houseofstrauss.com Puck News co-founder and Ringer podcast host Matthew Belloni presents the most comprehensive view of whatever’s happening in showbusinss, both big and small picture. Naturally, I wanted his takes on the role of modern sports docs (Such as Quarterback on Netflix), ESPN, and the death of tentpole comedies post 2014....

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.houseofstrauss.com When Colin Cowherd of Fox Sports and the Volume podcasting network stopped by HoS, I wanted to pick his brain on industry subjects. As expected, he was a stupendously entertaining font of behind scenes takes. As a TV sports talk king and a podcasting network founder, he sees the modern content economy from differe...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.houseofstrauss.com Matt Welch from the great Fifth Column podcast stops by to discuss his role in that 3 man monster, his history in the business, and issues of the day. Podcast topics include, but are not limited to: * Is Matt the Ernie Johnson of Fifth Column or its Paul McCartney? * Are you now, or have you ever been a libertaria...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.houseofstrauss.com A chaotic day in sports media as ESPN timed up their news of major layoffs exactly with the starting gun for NBA free agency. Given all that happened and his New York Post reporting on the matter, we needed Ryan to swing by on short notice and deliver his insights. From there, we bounced around to many a sports me...

A benefit of my job is that I can read a book, enjoy it, and then interview the person who wrote it. This is exactly what happened after I binged Ben Smith’s Traffic: Genius, Rivalry, and Delusion in the Billion-Dollar Race to Go Viral. Ben, now a founder of Semafor , formerly of the New York Times , and before that, EIC of Buzzfeed News , has written a contemporary history of the early news era i...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.houseofstrauss.com After years of relative stasis, the Warriors have just seen their longtime General Manager quit, and, on Thursday, completed a trade of that saw the ouster of Jordan Poole and the introduction of Chris Paul. We talk about this, talk draft and eventually start drifting away from the pure basketball discussion. This...

We re-welcome Katie Herzog of Blocked and Reported , the hilarious podcast that explains Internet meltdowns while weaving them into a spellbinding narrative. I asked Katie on because a) She’s a great guest, but also b) BAR-worthy topics of controversy are knocking into the sports world. Specifically, baseball’s awkward embrace of Pride celebrations and the broader societal conversation about trans...