I’ve been watching Trey Wingo on television for what feels like most of my life. Whether it was SportsCenter, NFL Live, or his NFL Draft coverage, he was one of those guys who knew his stuff, didn’t need to scream into a camera to make a point, and could actually be entertaining without turning everything into a hot take.
And considering what sports media has become these days, that’s almost a lost art.
I recently had the opportunity to sit down with Trey over Zoom to talk about his latest podcast venture, the OG Football Show, his 25 years at ESPN, the changing landscape of sports media, his influences, and even a little politics.
And you know damn well I wasn’t going to let him leave without asking about Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills.
Trey didn’t hold back, either. He had some pretty strong opinions about where the Bills stand, whether their current formula is sustainable, and whether their Super Bowl window might already be closing.
A quick note: This interview was conducted over Zoom and transcribed afterward. My questions have been shortened for readability, while Trey’s answers have been preserved with minor grammatical and punctuation edits for clarity. The conversation has not been rewritten to change his opinions or the substance of his answers.
With that out of the way, here’s my conversation with Trey Wingo.
The OG Football Show and Life After ESPN
Joe from Queens: What made this the right time to launch your new podcast venture, and what are you hoping to accomplish?
Trey Wingo: I have a buddy of mine who said to me once, “Once you work for yourself, you’ll never want to work for anybody else again.” And I found that to be true in my post-ESPN career. I want to set my own schedule. I want to do things on my time and discuss the things that I’m really interested in.
And obviously, being able to work with Mark Schlereth and Merril Hoge and Damien Woody, whom I worked with for many, many years at ESPN, is a big part of that. And so it’s just fun for me to reconnect with guys on so many levels that I’ve had relationships with over the years and sort of do our own thing. And it’s been really rewarding.
Joe from Queens: What makes the OG Football Show different from the thousands of other football shows out there?
Trey Wingo: Well, our line on the OG Football Show is, “No bits, no bullshit, just ball.” I am not a fan of the way media in general has sort of veered into this world of hot takes and opinions and clickbait things. I don’t care about what you think. I want to know what you know, and I want you to explain it to me.
I know so many people that I used to work with who will say things that I know they don’t believe in just to get the reactions to it. And I hate that. We have a responsibility, when we’re in front of the microphone or the camera, to be factually and intellectually honest with our viewers and our listeners and rely on the experience that we have as journalists, analysts, or former players to tell the truth about what’s really happening.
And not put something out there like, “Oh, imagine if I say this or post this, the reactions it’s gonna get.” I do not care about any of that. There’s somebody that I used to work with at ESPN who, two years ago, said, “I believe that Arch Manning will go down as the greatest quarterback in the history of the SEC.”
There was absolutely no factual data to back that up in any way, shape, or form. It was an opinion. And it was an opinion that, in an honest moment, that guy probably would say, “Yeah, I really didn’t know, but I thought I’d take a shot.” That’s not anything I’m interested in at all.
I’m interested in what happens, why it happened, explaining why it happened using predictive data, and using the analysis of what happened to project what could happen going forward if these things do or do not change.
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Building an Audience Without Chasing Clicks
Joe from Queens: You’ve spent decades in sports media. What have you learned about building an audience that you didn’t know when you started?
Trey Wingo: This is gonna sound terrible. I don’t know if I care about what it takes to build an audience. I want to serve an audience that’s interested in being smarter and understanding what they’re watching. And from the reactions that we’ve gotten to the OG Football Show, as well as Inside Football, and the Wingo Network, and Golf with Trey, we’re finding those people.
I’m not interested in doing something just to do it, to get more people to watch or listen. I want people that want to be informed, and informed in a fun and entertaining way, but informed nonetheless.
And if that means fewer people are watching, but the right people are watching and listening because they want to be a smarter sports fan, that’s all that matters to me.
Joe from Queens: Years ago, feedback came from your bosses or fan mail. Now it’s instantaneous on social media. How much does that influence you?
Trey Wingo: Well, look, you always want to listen to feedback, especially if you do something incorrect. And I think the beauty of social media is that those things can happen in real time, as opposed to three days later when you get a letter in the mail. Or something else is wrong. We used to say at SportsCenter, “Well, don’t worry about it. It’s gone off to Pluto.” No, YouTube exists. You know, the internet is forever. And I think that’s something really beneficial about that, and the way you can be self-corrected.
But I also am not going to be influenced by what someone who I believe doesn’t know what they’re talking about tells me. You know, it’s like when people respond to something in all caps. That doesn’t make it more interesting or more important. It just means that you’re angry.
Everything has to be taken in context. If there’s someone who I believe knows what they’re talking about and has done this for a long time who says, “Hey, I think you got this wrong,” or “You did this wrong,” or even if it’s a fan who’s like, “Look, I looked at this,” and I’m like, “That’s correct,” then that’s something that we should respond to.
But if it’s just some guy or some person just venting because they want to vent, I don’t care. That doesn’t affect me, doesn’t bother me, doesn’t interest me, and doesn’t resonate with me in any way, shape, or form.
The People Who Influenced Trey Wingo
Joe from Queens: Who were your biggest influences in sports media, both on camera and behind the scenes?
Trey Wingo: I think the fairest way to answer that is the people who inspired me to do what I do. Right? I think that’s what you’re asking more than anything else. There are people that I watched growing up as a kid that I thought were great. There was this guy in Dallas, Texas. His name was Dale Hansen. He was at WFAA for a long time. I thought he was really great at what he did. Very interesting, comedic, and also journalistically strong in the way he presented things. I loved that about him.
Bob Costas has always been one of my role models. When I was working in St. Louis, I got a chance to know Bob a little bit, and I always respected his opinions. I’ll give you an example about Bob. We used to do this show called Sports Plus on Sunday nights. It was an hour-long show. And we’d like Bob to come in, and he’d say, “Well, what do you want me to talk about?” And I said, “The NFL.”
“Well, I haven’t really done much in the NFL yet this year.” And I’m like, “Who cares? You’re Bob Costas.” And he stopped me dead in my tracks and said, “No, that’s wrong. You need to understand that I don’t do that. If I’m not versed on something and don’t think that I’m in a position to talk about it intellectually in a good way, I’m not doing it.”
And that was a really good lesson for me as a young sportscaster, to hear that from someone like Bob, who could have gone in and just faked it and done whatever he wanted to do. But he was like, “No, I don’t want to do that.” And I really respected that from him.
When I first got to ESPNEWS, I got a text from Bob, and he said, “Hey, I saw you, and you did a really good job.”
He said, “So many of those guys look like they’re trying to audition for open mic night at the Chuckle Hut. And you did it in a way that was comedic, but also interesting and informative.”
And I’ll never forget that text from him as long as I live.
Bob Ley, obviously, who I worked with on SportsCenter on 9/11 that entire week, I have the utmost respect for him. There’s so many people that have helped me along the way. My producer for many, many years at ESPN on the six o’clock SportsCenter, and then in the NFL coverage, a guy named Seth Markman, who is still there fighting the good fight at ESPN. I have a lot of respect for him. And also the guys that I do the shows with now. I have a lot of respect for all of those guys.
Sports, Politics, and Telling the Truth
Joe from Queens: You’re pretty vocal about politics on Twitter. With so many people saying sports and politics shouldn’t mix, where do you stand on using your platform for both?
Trey Wingo: I find myself tired of the bullshit, is the best way. You know, we used to have a guy who said, “Don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining.” Look, man, you’re allowed to have whatever political opinions you want.
That’s the beauty of this country, and what most people fail to understand, whether they’re entrenched on the left or entrenched on the right, is that this country allows us to have differing opinions. And differing opinions don’t make us worse as a country. They actually make us better.
But don’t lie to me. Don’t bullshit me. Don’t tell me things that you know aren’t true, and I know aren’t true, and you’re saying them just to stir up a fan base on either side. I am not here for any of that.
I could talk policy with anybody. I have no problem with that. I have a problem with people feeding red meat to their fan base just to get them riled up.
Because we are the United States of America. We are not blue states and red states. We are the United States of America. As Benjamin Franklin infamously said all those years ago, “If we don’t hang together, we’ll all surely hang separately.”
Is Traditional Sports Television Dying?
Joe from Queens: With so much content available on YouTube and streaming, are shows like SportsCenter and NFL Live becoming a thing of the past?
Trey Wingo: That’s interesting you bring that up because I got sent a chart today, and it’s really remarkable. And it’s basically the number of people, or the share of U.S. TV viewing time by distributors. YouTube is at about 16%. Amazon is under 5%. Paramount is around 7%. Disney’s around 8%. Netflix is around 6% or 7%.
The point being is that the internet in itself creates freedom of choice, right? There are very few things, outside of live sporting events, that people will sit down and watch when they are scheduled to be on television. It is a culture where now, because of technology, we can pick and choose what we want to watch whenever we want to watch it. And I think that’s to the point that you’re making.
I loved doing NFL Live for all those years. We used to say it was appointment viewing. I’m not sure there’s anything besides a live sporting event that’s appointment viewing anymore, whether it’s sports or network entertainment. I think 97 of the top 100 rated television shows last year were NFL football games. The NFL is basically keeping networks alive.
If the NFL ever decides to go full streaming, which I think would be a mistake, but they could do it, I don’t know what becomes of networks. They won’t exist anymore. People don’t understand how important having network NFL programming is to network survival.
I do think all of those things are passé because of the industry changing. And cutting cords has been a huge thing. At its peak, when I was at ESPN, I think we had about 110 million subscribers. I believe that number’s now hovering in the mid-50s. I mean, that’s a significant drop.
And what people don’t understand is that about $10 of your cable bill went directly to ESPN. They brokered one of the greatest arrangements of all time for many years because they had the NFL, the NBA, Major League Baseball, and at one time the NHL, and they have that back now.
So if you talk about an industry like ESPN, which has lost almost half its subscribers, let’s just put a number on it: 50 million conservatively. And that’s $10 a month, times 50 million, times 12 months a year. That’s the kind of numbers we’re talking about here.
And that’s why ESPN is all into ESPN+ and Disney+ and buying Hulu. They’re trying to get those streaming numbers up. I mean, to answer your question, the business model that made ESPN successful is no longer a successful business model.
It’s like trying to sell a Model T in 2025. I mean, they’ve got to be really innovative and creative to find ways to keep that revenue coming in.
Joe from Queens: Even something like 30 for 30 doesn’t seem as frequent as it was 10 or 15 years ago.
Trey Wingo: Well, I love the 30 for 30. I mean, the six-parter on Saban has been really, really good. And there are really good people who work at ESPN.
And I want ESPN to survive. I do. I want people to be able to have a career like I had, 25 years there, and sort of ride that wave.
But the media industry changes almost daily now, and technology is increasing everything. And, you know, AI and all that kind of stuff. It’s just hard to find ways to keep things afloat, essentially.
Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes, and the Buffalo Bills’ Super Bowl Window
Joe from Queens: Let’s talk Bills. Josh Allen is arguably the best player in football, but the team keeps coming up short. What needs to change for Buffalo to finally win a Super Bowl?
Trey Wingo: I put this out there on the OG Football Show a couple of weeks ago. What the Bills are currently doing is not a sustainable model.
Okay, they are 5-1, yes, but they’re minus-three, I have to check, before the Raiders game. I think they’re still minus-four in the turnover differential. They have either the second- or third-worst defense in terms of points and yards given up, and they’re one of the most penalized teams in football. 1
That’s not a sustainable business model. That’s not a sustainable success formula.
And I see this every year from Buffalo. They come out of the gates blazing. Then they sort of lollygag around the middle of the season, and then they get it together, and they get into the postseason. The problem for the Bills, it’s kind of like the Ravens, is that no matter what they do in the regular season, it won’t matter because they’ll be judged by what happens in the playoffs.
And I love Josh, and I agree with you. At worst, he’s a top-three quarterback in the NFL. You can argue about Burrow, Mahomes, all this kind of other stuff. I got no argument where you want to put any of those guys. Except when it comes to results. It’s Mahomes by a mile.
And the thing about Josh, I think he has, what, eight playoff wins? But if I’m not mistaken, six or seven of them are against seven-seeds since we went into this seven-seed formula. And those guys never win playoff games. He needs to be better, and the Bills need to be better against the best teams in football. And that’s been their saga every year.
I mean, Josh is the only quarterback in NFL history who has started 0-4 against the same quarterback and the same team in the postseason, and that is obviously Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs. And it’s not all on Josh. He didn’t decide to kick it out of the end zone with 13 seconds left in that divisional game in 2021. That was ridiculous.
But he had a bad game against the Broncos in the playoffs, and we can argue whether or not that last interception should have been a catch or an interception, and there will be controversy about that. But, you know, he wasn’t what he needed to be in that game.
I really thought last year was the year that they could get it done because the Chiefs were out of there, the boogeyman didn’t exist, and they came up short again. And the way the Chiefs are playing now, and the way Kenneth Walker has just absolutely changed fundamentally everything Kansas City can do, I’m wondering if their window to do this might have already closed, as good as that team is.
Because there’s gonna be a generation of quarterbacks, especially in the AFC, that don’t get their flowers because 15 exists. And I fear that that might be the case for Josh and the Bills.
Joe from Queens: Allen is 5-1 against Mahomes in the regular season but 0-4 in the playoffs. It’s a remarkable difference.
Trey Wingo: That’s it. It’s a different dynamic. Patrick said something about it after the win on Sunday against the Chargers, which, by the way, the Chiefs did everything they could to lose, and they still won by 16.
They had a missed field goal, a missed PAT, Mahomes threw an end-zone interception, and they got stopped on fourth-and-one. They fumbled a punt return. That’s the list of how to lose a game, and they still won by 16. Granted, it was the Chargers, but still.
He said after that game, “What last year taught me is what I think a lot of us took for granted, that we’ll just get through the regular season and then we’ll flip it on in the playoffs,” which is something they’ve been able to do.
Patrick says, “I appreciate the process now more of getting ready by playing these games.” And I think the worst thing for everybody in the AFC was the Bills missing the playoffs last year. Because it made them realize, yeah, we went to five Super Bowls in six years.
Now think about that. Five in six years. Nobody’s ever done that. Nobody. Not the Patriots, not the Steelers. Nobody has gone to five in six. It made them hungry. And the one thing that team needed to be was a little hungry. And they’re better now across the board than they were a year ago.
Trey’s Final Thoughts on Buffalo
Joe from Queens: Before we wrap up, is there anything else you’d like to add?
Trey Wingo: I love Buffalo. I wish them all the success in the world. They’re great. They may be the best fan base in football.
I know people will say the Steelers and the Packers. Nobody travels and loves their team more than Buffalo.
And listen, if that guy isn’t winning it, meaning 15, I would love Buffalo to get that championship.
I just know that guy’s a stone-cold killer, man. He’s a stone-cold killer.
Footnote: The Bills are 5-1, but they have a minus-three turnover differential (minus-four before the Raiders game), rank 28th in points allowed per game (fifth-worst), 31st in yards allowed per game (second-worst), and are among the six most penalized teams in the NFL.