Spokane native Neil Everett and Stan Verrett make the leap from ESPN to Twitch

Neil Everett and Stan Verrett will be forever linked in sports broadcasting circles, given their long run with ESPN as the anchors of Los Angeles-based “SportsCenter.” The two worked together out of L.A. from 2009 -23, which made them among the longest-running “SportsCenter” duos ever.

Everett, a 1980 graduate of Spokane’s Lewis and Clark High School, left the company in 2023, which he chronicled for the Athletic that year, and Verrett’s ESPN tenure ended when the company announced last March that it was ending production of the L.A.-based edition of “SportsCenter” and soccer programming and moving both to its HQ in Bristol, Connecticut.

But the partnership continues. Verrett and Everett debuted “The Stan and Neil Show” recently on Twitch, the global livestreaming platform. The show airs live on Tuesdays and Fridays at 3 p.m.

The following is an edited version from a recent appearance on the “Sports Media with Richard Deitsch” podcast:

What has life been like for you over the last couple months since your ESPN time ended?

Stan Verrett: It’s been different not going into the office that I went to for 16 years. But the great part about this is if there were ever a time to leave legacy media and branch out on your own, this is it. I think the confluence of the technological advances, which made broadcasting from your home possible, and the COVID experience for consumers where they got used to seeing people with a bookcase behind them rather than in a studio, has created an environment where if you have the content, the distribution takes care of itself. We feel like we have the concept, and we’re going to put it out there and hope to attract an audience.

Neil Everett: I’m excited to get out there and see what I can bring to this thing. I’m enjoying working for the Trail Blazers (where he serves as television studio host), but that’s seasonal work. So this just seemed like an opportunity that I was blessed to get by Stan calling me up. I’m with Stan on how great a run we had, and I don’t bother myself much with paying attention to what ESPN is doing these days because I no longer hear from them once every two weeks. There’s a handful of people back there that I got a lot of respect for, and I’m thankful that they were in my lives because they put me in the position that I’m in now. ESPN’s going to be just fine and is fine, and I continue to root for those people that I made friendships with back there and the new people as well.

Verrett: If the L.A. studio were still there, and ESPN would still have me, I would still be there. My life is in Los Angeles now. This is where I live. This is home. This was as much a life choice as it was a career choice … I had 25 wonderful years there. I still have and will always have very pleasant memories of working at ESPN. There’s no even hint of any animosity or any feelings like, well, they did me wrong. They made a business decision that they needed to move “SportsCenter” back to Bristol for whatever their reasons were.

Why do this on Twitch as opposed to another platform?

Verrett: Twitch has a very young audience. Average age is 26. The folks at Twitch have been very supportive in helping us understand this world that we’re moving into. Jeff Anderson, our producer (and a former ESPN producer), was really the brains behind doing the show live on Twitch and then taking it to other platforms. I think it’s a really smart move. Twitch is not really known for sports content in the United States. But if you go on Twitch, and you look under the sports category, there are tons of European soccer shows that are already on Twitch. There are radio stations in Chicago and Houston and Dallas who do their radio shows live on Twitch. So it is a new frontier for sports content. … The people from Twitch see the vision of doing the show live first, bringing in an audience there, getting subscribers on Twitch and then taking the show and putting it on the other platforms as well. Having done live television, there is nothing like doing this live.

Can you make money on this or do you define making money at this point different than building an audience?

Verrett: One of my favorite books is “Do what you love. The money will follow.” Look, we’re very optimistic that we can build an audience. But I think people want to see what this is going to be like. They have already experienced us doing a highlight-driven show. … During the height of our ESPN popularity, we had an ESPN executive come out to LA to meet with us. He said, “Listen, one of the things we’re learning from our audience research is that more so than anything else, people are tuning in to hang out with you guys. They can get highlights anywhere, but our research is telling us that.” They asked us to start sharing more of who we were in between the highlights and emphasizing personality to the extent that we could within the “SportsCenter” format. Well, now we get to emphasize personality without having those confines. We just get to be who we are.

Everett: I’m along for the ride on this one. I’m not the worker bee that Stan is. I was in the hammock with a cold beverage, and Stan brought this idea. The chance to work with Stan and Jeff Anderson was enticing enough for me to get out of the hammock and get back into it. I couldn’t tell you the first thing about how Twitch works. I still don’t have any social media. But I’m gonna follow Stan’s lead. It worked for 14 years on the set, and I believe it’s gonna work for however long we want to give this thing a whirl.

How much runway will you give the show?

Verrett: If twice a week, I can talk to a really good friend about whatever interests us that’s going on in sports, I’m going to do it. Both of us could easily be retired now. I could be on the golf course, Neil could be the beach. We’d be fine financially. So this is as much about the two of us just having fun doing this as it is about trying to get rich. Now, could we get a (Pat) McAfee-type deal at some point? Yeah, I mean, I think that’s a realistic possibility if we apply ourselves and really engage in the way that we can. But if that doesn’t happen, and we make a modest amount of money from doing this, I’m more than fine with that because it’s something that’s fun. We sat next to each other every night in the newsroom. Some situations you have one anchor over here, one anchor over there. We sat directly next to each other every night for the whole time that we worked together. The show that was happening while we were watching games was at least as entertaining as the show we did once we got out on the set. What we are bringing to market is the show that we were doing in the newsroom. Neil, will you bail on me if we don’t strike it rich quick?

Everett: Well, you said McAfee money – and I blacked out after that. I got bills to pay, man.