How Rich Eisen went from chasing cop cars to building his own Emmy-nominated sports broadcasting empire

“I am nothing more than an ambulance chaser right now, and I should probably try and buckle down and follow a dream,” Eisen recalled in an interview with Fortune.

Eisen was once a crime reporter, but now is a storied sports broadcaster and podcaster with his own brand to stand him up. In 2022, Emmy-nominated “The Rich Eisen Show” made its leap from NBCUniversal’s Peacock to Roku, cementing his popularity among sports and entertainment fans alike. 

Having broken free from the large sportscasting networks like ESPN, Eisen has paved his own way and turned sportscasting on its head. “The Rich Eisen Show” combines two popular interests—sports and entertainment—balancing power rankings of professional sports leagues with guests like Larry David, Jerry Seinfeld, Mila Kunis, and even vice presidential nominee Tim Walz.

But it took some time for Eisen to develop his own vision and own brand—and to become a six-time Sports Emmy nominee in the Outstanding Studio Host category.

Early days of Eisen

Born in Brooklyn and raised in Staten Island, Eisen always loved sports—but realized he was better suited for staying on the sidelines. 

“I couldn’t hit a curveball, really didn’t have a jump shot of note, and so for me to get to a certain point in the sports world, probably I had to talk about it more than anything else,” he said. 

Eisen grew up emulating sports broadcasting, calling the action of pickup games on the street. By the time he reached the University of Michigan, where he wrote for the student newspaper, he knew he wanted to be a sports broadcaster, a late-night talk show host, or a game show host. Any one of those careers would make him happy.

Following graduation, Eisen worked for his hometown newspaper, The Staten Island Advance, for about two years before having his epiphany behind the wheel of a car chasing an ambulance. It was in that moment he decided to chase the sports broadcasting dream instead. He went on to earn his master’s degree in journalism at Northwestern University, “which means I’m one degree shy of being Doctor TV, if I can get a Ph.D. one day,” Eisen said.

Breaking into sports

After graduating from Northwestern, Eisen landed a summer internship at the CBS Evening News during the summer of the O.J. Simpson preliminary trial in the mid-90s. He then got a job doing sports broadcasting for the local ABC affiliate in Redding, Calif., before deciding in 1995 it was time to send his reel and résumé to headhunters. He got noticed by ESPN and was hired to be on SportsCenter, the company’s flagship program, at age 26. 

“And off I went,” he said. “I felt like I had won the lottery.”

Eisen started working for ESPN for what was considered the golden era of the network between 1996 and 2003, “when the internet hadn’t taken over yet,” he said. Eisen worked the 2 a.m. show with fellow sportscaster Stuart Scott, who died of appendiceal cancer in 2015—but despite the early-morning hours, Eisen said he got the most exposure of his entire career, appearing in over 100 million homes, because ESPN re-aired his broadcast seven times each morning. 

“Today, I’ll have people come up to me in airports with their children saying that they would watch me and Stu in the morning and then go on the school bus off to school,” Eisen said. “I’m blessed to have had that monster beginning of my career and being chosen by ESPN to help lead a charge at a time slot that was just beginning to become extremely popular.”

Eisen left ESPN in 2003 to plant his flag at NFL Network, but still thinks fondly of his time at Disney’s sports giant.

“People still hum the SportsCenter theme to me when I’m walking through airports. I love it,” Eisen said. “I love having that part of my career. It’s where I met my wife in the newsroom there. My three children are technically ESPN babies. It changed my life.” 

Eisen’s wife, Suzy Shuster, is also a sports commentator who hosts her own podcast, “What The Football” with former Las Vegas Raiders CEO Amy Trask.

Building his own brand

It’s one thing to break into sports broadcasting; building your own brand and show is another beast entirely. But Eisen did both. 

While he was the first on-air talent added to NFL Network’s roster in June 2003—five months before the network’s launch in November 2003, according to the NFL—Eisen had another epiphany several years later.

“Covering the Super Bowl, I realized that the biggest export we have sports-wise in North America, and the biggest event that we have, the Super Bowl, is stopped midway through for a rock concert,” he said. “And nobody really bats an eyelash over it. As a matter of fact, more people will talk about the halftime show than the actual game, depending on how the game plays out.”

That made Eisen realize the NFL is pop culture, just like movies, television shows, books, and music albums. 

“Why not build a show around that?” Eisen asked himself. 

So about halfway through his tenure at the NFL Network, Eisen started his podcast, which eventually turned into a TV show, in which he interviewed celebrities, movie stars, television stars, and musicians. From there, Eisen got a call from DirecTV in 2013 asking him to do his podcast as a TV and radio simulcast after “The Dan Patrick Show” on Audience Network.

Eisen was all-in on the idea, and eventually got the NFL Network on board. He grew the show for about five years—but then Audience Network suddenly shuttered, which meant “The Rich Eisen Show” needed a new home. 

“I was given that piece of news two days before Christmas in 2019. I’ll never forget it,” Eisen said. “I was placed with a reality: either I take it over, figure out how to own it and operate it and host it, or lose it. And losing it wasn’t an option.

“That’s not the way I wanted this show to end. That’s not the way I envisioned it ending,” Eisen said. “I don’t think it deserved to have an ending like that.”

Luckily, Eisen had a team that was along for the ride, he said, including his agents, media-relations team, and producers, but it was still a hard adjustment going from a large network to building his brand with his own personnel—all while the pandemic had just begun.

“I suddenly went from a TV and radio simulcast seen by millions of homes and heard on over 100-plus radio stations to just being on Sirius XM and on YouTube,” Eisen said. “Man, that was a very troubling time where life was crazy, just in general, and then professionally, just figuring out how to own this.”

But Eisen persevered: He eventually landed a deal with Peacock before making the jump to Roku in 2022, which had 63.1 million active accounts as of the second quarter this year.

Eisen is “the real deal,” Charlie Collier, president of Roku Media, told Fortune. “He’s an all-star talent. He’s funny. He’s got a huge knowledge base—not just the sports, but popular culture. And he’s one of those people who is so passionate about everything he does.”

Rich Eisen’s future

Eisen says he has more than “made it”—he is “living out his childhood dream.”

“I wanted to be a sportscaster or a talk show host, and I’m doing both every day in a studio with my name on it and my logo,” he said. In October, he celebrated 10 years of “The Rich Eisen Show.”

Eisen has also come to embrace social media for marketing his show. Though he never envisioned himself becoming a YouTube or TikTok influencer, his YouTube page currently has 850,000 subscribers, and he’s amassed 250,000 followers on TikTok. 

“I love it when people stop me and say, ‘I watch your show on TikTok every day,’ and it’s just like, wow, those are words I never thought I would hear,” Eisen said. “I’m thrilled to hear it, because in this day and age, obviously you want to have a live show, and obviously you want to have an audience that watches you on demand.”

While Eisen has achieved many of his dreams, he still has his eye on a couple of dream roles. A long-time fan of Bob Barker and “The Price is Right,” Eisen could see himself hosting a game show. Eisen even got to meet Barker once, and told him “how I grew up watching him, and in college I would occasionally blow off class watching him.”

“As somebody who speaks to people as a broadcaster for a living, I emulate [Barker’s] style,” Eisen said. 

Eisen said he also wants to host a dog show one day. (He owns two rescue golden retrievers, Halo and Dylan.)

“I think I ranked sixth in the house to my wife. There’s the three kids and two dogs, and then I rank sixth,” Eisen said. “But I understand that. I understand my lot in life. I love it.”