Sporticast: Scoring Tramps, Michael Jordan, and the Return of Slamball
On the latest Sporticast episode, hosts Scott Soshnick and Eben Novy-Williams speak with Mike Tollin, an award-winning film producer and co-founder of Slamball, about the sport’s return after a 20-year U.S. hiatus and the current sports media landscape.
Slamball, a version of basketball played on trampolines, was originally launched in 1999 and grew a small but avid following in the U.S. on Spike TV. When that shut down, it continued to gain steam overseas. This year it returned in the U.S., with almost 50 hours of live games and other programming across ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPN+. The eight-team league, whose outside investors include Michael Rubin, David Blitzer and Blake Griffin, had a handful of sell-outs in Las Vegas, and averaged about 105,000 viewers in its ESPN windows.
More from Sportico.com
Sporticast: The Business Fallout of Aaron Rodgers' Torn Achilles
Sporticast: Takeaways From the Disney-Charter Carriage Dispute
Sporticast: The Business of College Sports Is Broken. Here's How To Fix It.
Tollin talks about his desire to bring Slamball back, and why 2023 was the right year to do it. He also gets into the league’s approach to big names—its 2023 season didn’t feature basketball players that fans were likely to recognize—and how to balance Slamball’s competitive aspects with its entertainment appeal.
Tollin was the executive producer of The Last Dance, the 10-part docuseries about Michael Jordan and the 1997-98 Chicago Bulls. He discusses the rise in popularity of the unscripted sports docuseries. He also talks about how those shows could be included in live rights deals moving forward. Slamball, for example, filmed a lot of its return this year, and is planning to use that footage alongside live games with ESPN next year.
Lastly, Tollin talks about how two major entertainment news stories—the ongoing writers’ strike and the short-lived carriage dispute between Disney and Charter—could affect sports fans and sports franchise owners moving forward.
(You can subscribe to Sporticast through Apple, Google, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever else you get your podcasts.)
