PATRICK GAME FOR A CHANGE
‘Undeniable’ chance for in-depth sports talk
Dan Patrick’s latest show is unlike anything he’s ever done before.
The veteran broadcaster and longtime radio voice of “The Dan Patrick Show” — who has covered Super Bowls and Olympics, anchored NBC’s “Football Night in America” and ESPN’s “SportsCenter” and emceed the game show “Sports Jeopardy!” — is now diving into the long-form interviewing realm as the new host of “Undeniable,” a TV program centering on conversations with some of sports’ biggest stars.
For Patrick, “Undeniable” presents the chance to go indepth with guests in a way other mediums don’t allow.
“I’ve never had this opportunity, long-form interviewing,” Patrick told the Daily News. “The first goround of interviews, the first 10 that I did, I sat down with each of the people for close to three hours each. We tell them, we think this will be the penultimate interview about your life. It’s about your life, it’s not just about your career. It’s about where you grew up and your parents and your brothers and sisters and how all that made you into who you are and what you are. I think they realize after a while that we are exploring everything about them and it brings back a lot of memories. Some are great, some are painful, but you capture it all on camera.”
Patrick, 62, takes over for what will be the sixth season of “Undeniable,” replacing host Joe Buck. His first 10 episodes of the show — which air on the AT&T AUDIENCE Network — premiere this fall, with guests including Ray Lewis, George Brett, Jim Palmer, Cheryl Miller and Carl Lewis.
His mission, he explains, is to find five moments in every interview where his guest shares something the audience didn’t know, or expounds on a topic people didn’t know as much about as they could.
“It could be Ray Lewis talking about the double homicide in 2000 at the Super Bowl in Atlanta,” Patrick says. “It could be Rod Woodson talking about the KKK burning down his house in Fort Wayne, Ind., (or) Cheryl Miller just wanting to hear her father say, ‘I’m proud of you.’”
Patrick’s debut on the series comes at a time when sports are squarely at the center of the political and social discussion.
“Sports now allows us to at least have a starting point, a launching point, to talk about race, or religion or politics,” Patrick said. “It’s not something I seek out. I’ve never been somebody to do an interview that’s just going to titillate you or kind of manipulate you, but if there’s something that can be brought out, with where are we headed with the violence in the NFL, or the anthem, or it could be something to do with President Trump tweeting . . . . I think we’re talking about more serious topics now than we’ve ever spoken about in my career, and that’s spanning over 35 years.”
Patrick’s former employer, ESPN — where he worked for nearly two decades before leaving in 2007 — has garnered attention recently amid reports it’s parting ways with commentator Jemele Hill. The network suspended Hill last October after she shared a politically charged tweet about Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, marking her second violation of ESPN’s social media guidelines.
“I learned a long, long time ago that no matter how far you distance yourself when you’re off the air, you’re still a ‘SportsCenter’ anchor whether you like it or not,” Patrick said. “And if you’re tweeting out something, you’re still representing ESPN and ‘SportsCenter.’ Jemele found that out.”