Cote: It’s the end of an era as Dan Le Batard Show drops Stugotz from show’s name
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz is no more.
After more than 20 years, the Miami-based show will have a new name beginning on Monday. This might not surprise ardent, longtime fans who may have seen it coming, but it still likely hit home as the end of an era when the announcement was made on-air midday Thursday.
No more “with Stugotz.”
It’s now, simply: The Dan Le Batard Show.
Longtime co-host Jon “Stugotz” Weiner has not appeared on the show in just over a year, but his name had remained on the show’s title ... until now. Weiner left Le Batard to start his own Stugotz And Company podcast as part of a newly formed Stugotz Podcast Network. The show, a live, daily afternoon program on Fox Sports Radio, debuted January 19, 2026.
Le Batard revealed the news to his show’s crew and staff after Wednesday’s recording, when, subtly, the colorful imaging on the studio walls no longer included Stugotz’s likeness or name. The change was announced on-air to listeners and viewers in a five-minute address by Le Batard on Thursday, and the rebranding will be introduced and officially take effect on Monday.
“This is many months overdue, but I’m here to announce that Stugotz’s name is coming off the show, unfortunately,” Le Batard told his legions of loyal show fans. “We remain a loud, vibrant, colorful thing, but our imaging has gone stale in no longer reflecting the show in its current form, so it’ll be different when we return to work on Monday with the knowledge that, wherever there is pain, there is also an invitation to grow.”
Le Batard admitted the delay in removing Stugotz’s name and the “silence surrounding it” happened because of behind-the-scenes efforts to reunite with Stugotz -- a possibility that still exists, LeBatard still believes.
“This isn’t the correct way to say goodbye after more than two decades, so he and I will keep trying to figure out a reunion,” Le Batard said. “I remain hopeful he’ll continue to be a part of what we’re doing eventually, and know he’ll always be welcome, but we are not now what we once were. And pretending otherwise isn’t loyalty, it’s denial.”
Le Batard and Stugotz’s show left ESPN in January 2021 after a long run and went independent as Le Batard and former ESPN president John Skipper founded Meadowlark Media.
“It’s hard to fathom that we now have a national media company in the heart of my hometown – a stable media thing in the most unstable media climate of my lifetime,” Le Batard told listeners. “[It is] 100 percent independent, a safe creative space for people to keep creating, inventing, pushing. We’re bigger than we’ve ever been after leaving the Worldwide Leader in Sports, available in more places [and] reaching more people.”
The affiliated Pablo Torre Finds Out show, based in Meadowlark’s New York studio, recently won a Pulitzer Prize for investigative work, which, Le Batard said, “lit a fire across every corner of this company to look hard at what we’re making and make it better, this show included.”
Meadowlark’s flagship daily Le Batard Show remains massively popular, consistently ranked top-five nationally on Apple Podcasts’ charts.
“This is such an intimate thing we do every day, living inside your head,” Le Batard told fans. “Some of you have been with us 10, 20 years. I don’t have a lot of relationships like that in my life. You have a lot of entertainment options ... and I’m guessing you don’t have a lot of entertainment relationships that require the investment this one does. So we’re in a committed relationship, you and us, and I know that comes with expectations and responsibilities. But ... the moment you stop growing together is the moment you start growing apart.”
Le Batard continued: “The most consistent thing about our show hasn’t been how or when or why people leave. The most consistent thing about our show is that, somehow, you stay, no matter the storm. We’ve changed studios three times. We’ve changed executive producers four. Some of you have been with us long enough to remember a time when the producers didn’t speak at all. There has been upheaval all around us for more than twenty years, most of it concealed in the name of protecting the laughter. I’d argue it is very rare to endure in something as competitive as entertainment this long without it.
“For those that want this show to feel like it always has, familiar and comfortable as your favorite chair … I’m afraid this is where our drift begins,” Le Batard concluded. “The single surest way to destroy anything or anyone you care about is to stop building. Change is uncomfortable, yes, especially in a medium as intimate as this one, but change is also something required in any kind of expansion. So, yes, we will look different on Monday because we are different. Because, come what may, no matter how hard, no matter the day, year, or decade, different is what we’re always aspiring to be.”
This story was originally published June 18, 2026 at 12:00 PM.
