Before there was a “Late Kick” YouTube show or even a flicker of hope in his professional life, Josh Pate, 35, was lost in his own complacency and in no hurry to find his way. In less than a decade, he has worked his way out of that funk -- and the work he did at a fabric warehouse -- to the 247Sports network as part of his incredible tear through radio, TV and the internet.
The viewership numbers say it all for Pate’s “Late Kick” show, which he brought to 247Sports in January 2020. Pate recently posted a screen grab of his analytics, which show “Late Kick” viewers tuning in for an average of 24-plus minutes per session. In modern media consumption, that number is an eternity.
Pate’s talent is clear, according to those who know him, because he can articulate arguments without resorting to cheap stereotypes or farcical hot takes. But what’s driving loyalty to Pate’s program is his desire to treat viewers like the buddies he used to meet for daily lunches at Clearview BBQ in Columbus, Ga.
The small-town mindset that once felt like a curse for Pate in his 20s, when it zapped him of his ambitions, is now one of his biggest blessings. He broadcasts with an everyman’s voice because he is well aware of what that life is and how to connect with fans who are going through it.
“I think a key to his success is that he is himself,” said Barton Simmons, the general manager for Vanderbilt’s football program and a former colleague at 247Sports. “He’s not putting on an act. He’s the same guy on and off the camera. The opinions he’s voicing aren’t manufactured. There’s authentic passion for the game and a humility, I think, to his approach.”
Before this run of success, around which 247Sports has big plans to build into the future, Pate described himself as an average kid who floated through high school and college. At one point, he stepped away from academia all together to ply his wares in the fabric warehouse.
Pate was dutiful in the hard labor he did over the two-plus years he spent loading and moving fabrics. At the time, he said he thought the idea of punching in for work, punching out and tabling his passions was expected, maybe even honorable, coming out of small-town Georgia.
“I knew I was very passionate about football,” Pate said. “I had never been able to put the connection together that you could ever have a career doing something you love because, like so many people, I had it engrained in me that the job is the thing that sucks you go do Monday through Friday. Your passions are what you do on the weekend.”
But it was in his truck rides to and from the warehouse where Pate’s dissatisfaction grew, baby steps were made, and his one-man band broadcasting style was born.
Pate listened feverishly to sports radio on his commutes with all the enthusiasm he could never muster in a classroom. He started making better use of his drive time by studying top personalities, which gave way to practicing his own lines and simulating life in a recording studio.
The words of David Rothschild, who employed Pate at the fabric warehouse, stuck with Pate as he navigated a grind that, deep down, he knew wasn’t on par with his God-given ability. Pate can credit a number of industry pros who influenced the early part of his broadcasting career, but it was Rothschild who gave him the first nudge.
Tough love then combined with other life events to stir a passion that Pate never realized could actually bring him closer to a better life.
“He kind of took me under his wing and let me know that a.) he thought highly of me, but b.) he was also disappointed in me,” Pate said of Rothschild. “He thought I had a lot of potential and I wasn’t close to realizing it. He was observing what I could not see in my own self.”
Pate made his own luck from there by putting his pursuit into action. He reached out to Columbus’ ESPN Radio affiliate and asked to simply observe radio work getting done. But Pate also put himself in position to catch his first break by preparing and visualizing success before it happened.
Because he studied and practiced in that truck, Pate was, incredibly, able to make his radio debut on a moment’s notice, on the afternoon drive, broadcasting college football to a rabid Southern fan base. Pate counts himself lucky to have had no time to think about the magnitude of the moment before he jumped in and delivered flawlessly.
“The host asked me, ‘Where have you worked before?’, and I told him I never have,” Pate said. “I never got taken off the air there.”
Not long after that, Pate’s phone rang and it was the local NBC affiliate offering him a job to host a college football television show. He took that job and parlayed it into working as sports director and an anchor who did both news and sports.
Pate’s next revelation happened inside that studio and set the stage for “Late Kick” as it exists today.
Pate got his first taste of live streaming on Facebook and described it as a mind-altering moment in his life. Even though he had already made a full-time living on radio and TV, the internet’s newest frontier felt different and worthy of the next stage of his pursuit.
Pate worked out an arrangement with the station to scale back his role, and he got permission to start shooting his first show, which was also titled “Late Kick,” in a fully operational studio. In addition to his chops as a broadcaster, his streaming show’s visuals brought instant credibility.
“That was a game-changer,” Pate said.
Pate’s big step away from traditional media into the internet’s great unknown was in 2018 and marked a huge gamble on himself.
That show caught the attention of 247Sports execs, who saw in Pate the refreshing kind of change they all viewed as instrumental to the early success of the show. That sentiment has only grown through the 19 months Pate has spent covering college football on the network.
His content originates at the national level and can trickle down to a network of local team sites. Pate’s ability to make even the most diehard fans see their teams in a new light is at the heart of that effort. To his credit, Pate is also a hit among the 247Sports reporters who cover those teams.
Those contributors are some of Pate’s most loyal viewers, according to Adam Stanco, vice president of content for 247Sports. Stanco is about six weeks into his tenure at 247 and says working with Pate was a huge part of the job’s allure.
“I don’t know if I’ve seen someone who is as engaged and who has such a great understanding for what would appeal to fans,” said Stanco, whose previous stops include ESPN and the Pac-12 Network. “I have come across very few people in my career who can do what he does. There are just very few people in our industry who are able to entertain and who really put the work in.”
The next frontier for 247Sports, Stanco said, is to take another big step toward a major company initiative to “own college football.”
The network is working on a plan to move Pate’s “Late Kick” studio from Brentwood, Tenn., to its Nashville headquarters. From there, “Late Kick” is going to be the centerpiece program of 247Sports’ leap into a live streaming platform ticketed to launch in either late 2021 or early ‘22.
The first phase, Stanco said, will be built around “Late Kick” along with a college football show and a recruiting show. Those will be building blocks that will push the initiative into future phases, meaning Pate’s presence should only continue to grow in the months and years ahead.
The world Pate once viewed from a billion miles away could end up in the palm of his hand.
“There were two different universes for me,” Pate said. “You realize that, yes, that is a different world, but you can build a bridge. You can get there.”
Ad Choices