Clay Travis, the rightwing media mogul, has launched a new venture, Sport & State, aiming to reclaim cultural ground lost to fellow sports bros and Magagitators like Pat McAfee, Joe Rogan, Tucker Carlson and Ben Shapiro. The site, which launched in August, is Travis’s bid to return to his roots after selling Outkick to Fox Sports for a rumored $100m.
A trolling offer to Kaepernick
Last week, Travis offered $2m to Colin Kaepernick to appear on the daily talkshow he hosts with former CIA analyst Buck Sexton. In Travis’s telling, Kaepernick taking a knee during the 2016 NFL season catalyzed professional sports into an era of “woke” excess. There has been no response from Kaepernick, suggesting he understands the offer was extended more in a spirit of trolling than sincerity.
No one associated with the left or progressive politics ever appears on Travis’s shows, which are designed purely for the right to talk to itself. More than heralding a renewal of Travis’s career, Sport & State is a case study in the stagnation on the right as Donald Trump faces defeat in November’s midterm elections.
Eleven topics on repeat
Having spent the better part of two months listening to the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show (noon to 3pm ET weekdays) and the Clay Travis Show (3-4pm), there are essentially only 11 topics covered: college football gambling picks; Trumpworld figures who are friends with Travis and Sexton; the wonderful job these figures are doing in power; low testosterone among white males who voted for Kamala Harris in 2024; trans women in professional sport (accounting for 20% to 50% of discussion, even as the number of actual trans women competing in professional American sports remains zero and there are probably fewer than 10 trans athletes in college sports); crime in America’s cities; the problem with women; the fact that Travis and Sexton are family men; Travis’s law degree from Vanderbilt University (after being rejected by Stanford); and Travis’s appearances on Fox News. Sprinkled throughout are plugs for Hard Rock Bet, the official gambling partner of Sport & State, and companies such as Perfect 10 Mortgage, Crockett Coffee, XX-XY Athletics and Clay Travis Law, all of which Travis either owns or holds a stake in.
Commercial strategy and audience
The recursiveness of advertising and content is part of the site’s commercial strategy, according to Travis’s mission statement. Onshoring all advertising will insulate the venture from media’s traditional dependence on subscriptions and external advertisers. Gambling is the key revenue driver: Outkick became an affiliate of FanDuel after sports betting was legalized in 2018 and eventually made $350 for every new gambling account it helped set up, netting $2m in affiliate betting revenue on Super Bowl Sunday in 2021 alone. Sport & State is set up to reap similar rewards through its partnership with Hard Rock Bet.
Travis’s sidequest companies offer a sense of the ideal audience member: a patriotic American male whose life revolves around mortgages, coffee, litigation, gambling and moaning about trans women. On the Crockett Coffee blog, recent posts include “American Coffee Origins and Brewing Techniques”, “Discovering American Coffee’s Unique Flavors”, and “The Americano: A Complete History”. Travis sips throughout the day from a black spillproof coffee container.
A theory of media and power
Travis’s big idea is that in the age of AI and commodified writing, it’s better to go deep than big, that depth of audience commitment matters more than scale. That approach – drumming down and appeasing an already loyal base – seems to have become the media-obsessed Trump White House’s guiding political strategy too. Discussion this week included a summary of Travis and Sexton’s Monday meeting with Trump in the Oval Office. Their main point was that “President Trump says he loves the show, says we’re doing a great job” and that various Trumpworld figures greeted them. “We saw Karoline Leavitt, our very good friend”; “We also saw Susie Wiles – she said she is cancer-free now”; “We got a little quick high-five from Stephen Miller”.
Over a chyron announcing THE VOICE OF SEAN HANNITY, the Fox News host called in to discuss sports betting, his border collie, Gavin Newsom and Kathy Hochul as the highest-taxing governors, and potential Democratic candidates for 2028. Hannity thinks AOC will be the nominee; Travis thinks it will be Kamala Harris. They agreed to bet on the outcome, with the loser to buy the winner a steak dinner. The segment concluded with all three saying “we had an awesome time” after five minutes of meandering conversation, and the announcement that Travis would be on Hannity’s show the following day.
Watching Sport & State’s live programming and reading its posts about how sports and the world suck now because of Joe Biden and woke, it’s difficult to figure out the appeal of Travis. Rogan has the vague charisma of a lifelong stoner; McAfee has that dog in him; Carlson has a habit of Mozart-laughing at his own jokes; Shapiro talks quickly. Travis has neither a sense of personal style nor any real sense of humor; he’s a boring dad who drones on about mortgages and failed sports bets and his law degree. He frequently looks exhausted on air, as does Sexton. Travis claims he’s working “20 hours a day” to produce material for Sport & State. If this is the right’s idea of a bold new intervention in sports and media, it’s hard not to feel that as a cultural force, the Magaverse is now well and truly running on fumes.
