Jemele Hill Talking About Joining New Skipper Venture

Dan Le Batard and John Skipper

Former ESPN president John Skipper and personality Dan Le Batard are partnering on a politically progressive sports media company. The new venture is described as the strategic opposite of Clay Travis’ Outkick, sources told Front Office Sports.

Skipper and Le Batard will build a diverse lineup of progressive sports voices, said sources. Their target list includes former ESPN colleagues Jemele Hill, Bomani Jones and Kate Fagan. 

Their still-unnamed startup has begun to seek sports talent in front of and behind the camera, said sources. Their strategy: sell various types of original content, from TV, radio and streaming sports shows to films and documentaries. 

Jemele Hill

Hill confirmed to frontofficesports.com she’s had early discussions with Skipper.

“We’re trying to figure out the most productive way to work together,” she told Front Office Sports. “Both John and Dan know I have such a deep level of respect for them. So me working with them again always felt like it was inevitable.”  

Skipper, the executive chairman of sports streaming company DAZN, also wants to hire a “content creator” he trusts from his six-year stint as president of ESPN from 2012-2017. 

Skipper and Le Batard’s new content outfit faces plenty of hurdles. First, they’ll need financing. Their standard of personalities and executive talent won’t come cheap. Some candidates on their wish list like Jones, host of “The Right Time” podcast, are still under contract with ESPN. 

Hill, whom ESPN suspended in 2017 after calling President Donald Trump a “white supremacist,” has formed her own independent media platform after leaving the sports giant.