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NY POST – In May, ESPN and Rodriguez announced to advertisers with much fanfare that they would do a show called “Pivot” during the MLB season. And then they didn’t do it.

In an odd occurrence, the A-Rod series was never produced, even after ESPN made it a featured part of its presentation at its upfronts at Times Square’s Minskoff Theatre seven months ago. The upfronts are the yearly event in which networks try to attract advertisers.  It was announced then that Rodriguez would be “Pivot”’s executive producer and host of a four-show series during the baseball season.

“I’m looking forward to uncovering personal stories the world deserves to hear, while sharing the lessons I’ve learned — sometimes through the hard way,” Rodriguez said at the time in a press release.

He apparently wasn’t looking that forward to it, as he went 0-for-4 in delivering the specials. A-Rod did record a podcast series this summer with Dan Katz from Barstool Sports that seemed to have a somewhat similar concept. “The Corp” was released Thursday.

So our newest podcast called The Corp launched this week and is currently sitting atop the podcast ratings.   It’s a big win for Barstool adding another A list celebrity to our podcast roster joining the Failing Upwards guys and Ryan Whitney.   But maybe my favorite part of landing A-Rod is that apparently big bad ESPN thought they were doing this series with them.    They even went as far as to sell it to advertisers.  And then whoosh A-Rod changed his mind and picked Barstool and ESPN was left with their pants around their ankles.   What a turn of events.   Just about a year ago Big Cat was getting his show canceled by that coke addict John Skipper and almost a year to the day he steals a show back from them.

And as far as to why A-Rod would pick Barstool over ESPN?  Well why don’t I just let Alex tell you that for himself.

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Rodriguez knows Barstool’s reputation. “Look, any time you do something, there’s going to be reaction—some positive, some not so positive,” he says. “I think the Barstool platform is unique in many ways. I think it has the ear of millennials. I think there’s a way of communicating with millennials about sports and business in a way that isn’t so buttoned up. For most of my other work, it is buttoned up, whether that’s Fox or ESPN, or CNBC. I think with this, we get to have a little bit of fun and show our personalities.”

Download The Corp by Barstool Sports