It seems like yesterday for Jeremy Schaap—the ESPN reporter and one of the top television journalists in the sports game—that he was reporting at NY1, the station in which he got his start.
During those early days, he wasn’t in sports. Instead, he covered city government and hot button issues for the cable network that airs inside the five boroughs before transitioning to sports.
Schaap is seemingly on top of the sports world, a man who has anchored coverage for events like the World Cup now has a permanent home at E:60, the ESPN show that was given a coveted Sunday morning time slot.
It has allowed for continuity of storylines and also the chance to build a larger audience. Schaap is the face of the show, a highly-respected and hard-nosed journalist who blends in some humor but never loses sight of the gravity of many of his topics.
E:60 is a magazine style program with in-depth reporting that includes everything from profile pieces of the biggest athletes away from the playing field to investigative journalism like the use of slave labor to build World Cup stadiums in Qatar.
“We had a party after the first show and I looked around the room and the level of talent: The producers, the talent, the cameramen, the associate producers—there is no more talented group of people in the business,” Schaap told Metro. “When you get to be one of the faces of the effort at the forefront of this stuff, you feel very lucky to be a part of this with such talented individuals.”
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The New York-born, Cornell-educated Schaap is now entering his 24th year at ESPN. He loves talking about New York sports still but these days, Schaap is on the cutting edge of a sports landscape that is truly global for him. His voice reaches millions.
When Schaap speaks up on an issue, people listen because of his track record as a journalist. When they listen, very often viewers of E:60 respond.
The work done by E:60 covers the intriguing, the offbeat and very often, the serious. Gender issues, worker rights, government abuse and anything that somehow touches the world of sports is on his radar. The investigative journalism has brought to light social injustice and change, exposing corruption and leading to outrage.
He rattles off a number of pieces that cover some of the biggest topics in sports over the last few years. Stories that very often were fleshed out if not downright broken by the team of reporters on E:60.
His role now brings him alongside Bob Ley, a veteran of ESPN for nearly four decades and someone Schaap calls “one of the most respected men in the business.”
Now with a consistent time slot on Sunday mornings and a full load of shows, Schaap is excited to see where E:60 can grow and continue to develop.
“We keep throwing this phrase around the office but ‘more is more.’ More opportunities to tell great stories, more opportunities to break news, more opportunities to react to the news with a weekly slot. It was a source of frustration,” Schaap said. “Not only did we not have as many slots and fewer shows, you didn’t know where to find us because we were shifting from spring to the fall…when you go away for periods of time, it made it harder to react to the news because when you’re back on the air, it might already be covered – might be out of the news. Now we’re back in the game of what is going on right now while continuing to do long-form, long-reporting, the month of reporting type of work that has become our bailiwick.”
