ESPN today announced it has reached a multi-year contract extension with Jeff Passan. The Senior MLB Insider will continue his role as one of ESPN’s leading journalists and MLB voices, delivering breaking news, analysis and in-depth reporting across ESPN platforms. As part of the new agreement, Passan will begin hosting his own ESPN baseball podcast in conjunction with Omaha Productions, expanding his storytelling and insider access for baseball fans.
“I came to ESPN seven years ago hoping to spend the rest of my career telling stories to the biggest and most passionate audience in the sports world,” said Passan. “I’m extraordinarily lucky to work with a team of great reporters, editors, producers, hosts and analysts. And I can’t wait to deliver an entirely new kind of baseball show for those who love the best game in the world.”
Passan’s reporting is regularly featured on ESPN.com, The Pat McAfee Show, SportsCenter, Get Up, Baseball Tonight, Pardon the Interruption, ESPN Radio and ESPN Social.
“Jeff is one of the industry’s leading journalists and most-respected voices in baseball,” said Burke Magnus, ESPN President, Content. “We’re delighted that Jeff will expand his presence at ESPN with his own podcast and continue to lead our breaking news coverage of MLB.”
Passan joined ESPN in 2019 and immediately made an impact as a leading reporter in the industry. In 2022, Passan received the Dan Jenkins Medal for Excellence in Sportswriting by the Moody College of Communication Center for Sports Communication & Media at the University of Texas for his 2021 story on San Francisco Giants outfielder Drew Robinson. Passan was named National Sportswriter of the Year by the National Sports Media Association in 2021 and 2023.
Prior to joining ESPN, Passan spent 13 years at Yahoo Sports. He is the author of The New York Times bestseller The Arm: Inside the Billion-Dollar Mystery of the Most Valuable Commodity in Sports and co-authored Death to the BCS: The Definitive Case Against the Bowl Championship Series. He and his family this year created the Rich Passan Sports Writing Scholarship, which aims to support the next generation of sportswriters. A native of Cleveland, Ohio, Passan is a graduate of Syracuse University and lives in the Kansas City area with his wife and two sons.
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