ESPN Vet Pablo Torre Eyes Bigger MSNBC Role As His Meadowlark Media Podcast On Transgender Athletes Nabs Murrow Award

EXCLUSIVE: Pablo Torre, who left his staff post at ESPN in 2023 but remained a regular on the network, will expand his presence on MSNBC as the November election approaches, sources tell Deadline.

The appearances will coincide with ongoing guest host and panelist shots on ESPN’s Pardon the Interruption and Around the Horn.

Torre’s main gig, meanwhile, is at Meadowlark Media, the John Skipper-led outfit that is also seeing returns on its investment in the host. Podcast Pablo Torre Finds Out has notched double-digit increases in YouTube views each month since its September 2023 launch and has also just scored an Edward R. Murrow Award for Sports Reporting.

The award recognized an episode titled “The Teenage Athlete at the Heart of America’s Culture War… Isn’t Very Good at Sports.” Torre traveled to Ohio, where lawmakers had sought to pass legislation banning trans female students from playing against girls. The effort came despite the fact that only one trans girl in the entire state (a backup softball catcher named Ember Zelch, with zero career home runs).

The podcast is widely distributed across Apple Podcasts, Draft Kings Network, YouTube, X, TikTok, Instagram, Spotify, Substack, Roku and other platforms. Guests in the first year have included Sue Bird, Megan Rapinoe, Maury Povich, JJ Redick, Action Bronson, Rob Lowe, Dan Soder and Wyatt Cenac.

Torre, who is familiar to viewers of MSNBC’s Morning Joe Live with Joe Scarborough, frequently commingles political and social issues with sports.

“I like to think of my show as if This American Life and Real Sports got together and started microdosing,” Torre said in a statement to Deadline. “Our mission is to solve mysteries and surprise our audience. In the process, we enjoy taking stupid things seriously and serious things stupidly. But our take is simple: the sports world is a mystery box of stories that can connect to everything else.”

Torre added that controversies over transgender athletes have developed into “the single most overblown campaign issue” in the political arena. “The fear — as the controversy over women’s boxing at the Paris Olympics reminded us — is that these Goliaths are all overpowering our daughters and stealing their trophies,” he said. “But what almost nobody does is sit down with the people that these proposed bills are actually banning. Politicians never tell you how few of these athletes even exist in America, in the first place. And after interviewing Ember Zelch, the reason why is obvious: the campaign ad might fall apart.”

In 2020, Torre replaced Mina Kimes as the host of ESPN Daily, the sports media outlet’s flagship podcast. When he left the company three years later, he said top execs were “diplomatic” about him continuing to appear on their air.