For many who work in sports media, reaching ESPN is the pinnacle of a career. The “Worldwide Leader in Sports” has had many faces come and go over the network’s 46-year history. Joon Lee was one of those faces.
The New York City-based sports writer, who was born in Boston, was considered part of the network’s new generation of sports journalists. After stops at Bleacher Report and several other outlets, Lee achieved his dream job, working for the network he grew up loving while covering the sports he had been passionate about since childhood.
Then, in June 2023, after four years with the network, that dream was shattered. Lee found himself part of a round of layoffs at ESPN. At 28 years old, he didn’t sulk. Instead, he pivoted, as many in sports media do following an unfortunate and unexpected end to a chapter of their careers. Ultimately, Lee returned to another passion from his youth, one he had always envisioned becoming his long-term career.
“For me, YouTube has always been my end game. It’s been what I’ve always wanted to do since the beginning of my career,” says Lee, who just celebrated three years since his departure from ESPN. “When I got to college, I realized that if I wanted to do something well, I would have to devote all the time and focus to it. So, I cared more about sports than I did about YouTube. Though, I figured YouTube would come back around at some point.”
That opportunity arrived in the moments following his departure from ESPN.
With two years remaining on his contract, Lee was unable to work because of a non-compete clause in his agreement. Instead, he used the time to re-invest in understanding sports fans’ perspective of the industry today. He also immersed himself in learning the latest about YouTube. Studying the metrics, strategy, and approach creators use to build sustainable independent businesses.
Lee says he received offers to do work similar to what he was doing at ESPN. While he considered some of those opportunities, he ultimately decided not to pursue them. Instead, his desire to return to YouTube outweighed the other options available to him.
“After having conversations about YouTube, my heart was in a place of wanting to try to make the independent space work,” explains Lee. “I’m engaged and don’t have kids. I had built up my savings with the thought of trying to go independent. For me, this was a time in my life to try and take a big swing and might as well go for it. Because I don’t have any kids that are dependent on me. It felt like the right time to take a risk.”
Lee then got to work. He officially relaunched his channel in early April 2025 with a single video explaining his decision to go independent. Since then, he has posted at least one video each week. The aim is building a relationship with his audience while steadily growing his subscriber base. Today, Lee has more than 62,000 subscribers and is aiming to eclipse 100,000 by the end of 2026.
He credits his success over the past year to hard work, investigative curiosity, and a little luck. With less bureaucracy dictating topic selection, Lee relishes the freedom to turn virtually any idea into content for his audience. That freedom also gives him complete editorial control. Lee scripts, writes, shoots, edits, and publishes all of his own content, outsourcing only the occasional complex animation.
The product lives by a simple mantra: make sports fun again. That means tackling topics that deserve deeper investigation and discussion while replacing the algorithm with the audience.
“I’m always trying to find the line of what I’m interested in and what the audience is interested in. That’s the stuff that’s going to make the business sustain over the long run,” said Lee. “I’m always giving myself room to experiment. Because I don’t want to pigeonhole myself in just doing one thing and doing the same thing over and over again.”
Lee’s content focuses on sports topics that extend beyond the action on the field. It’s an eclectic mix of experiential content. Ranging from taking batting practice against a major league pitcher to driving a stock car with NASCAR legend Jimmie Johnson. He also explores topics including illegal streaming, sourcing in sports journalism, dad shoes, and how sportsbook and prediction market advertising dollars are changing sports media.
Lee believes sports media is facing a credibility crisis because of the business relationships among leagues, networks, and media outlets. He says fans increasingly perceive those outlets as compromised. Particularly when gambling advertising plays such a significant role in their revenue.
“It’s really important for me to have hardline stances on gambling because it does affect the way audiences receive the credibility of the outlet,” notes Lee. “The reason I’m going about the business the way I am is because the business and the editorial are tied together. The business decisions you make do affect your editorial standing. Sports fans are smarter and more savvy than ever before. They see how sports journalism has changed.”
With that in mind, Lee does not accept advertising revenue from sportsbooks or prediction markets, a category that floods digital sports content, from podcasts to short-form video. In turn, that decision has created collaboration opportunities with companies that prefer not to align with brands that accept gambling clients.
“The feedback from the sales team at GoodStory has been advertisers like the fact I don’t take sports gambling money. It improves our negotiating stance with advertisers because I’m going for a family-friendly audience,” said Lee. “There’s brands that want to advertise with sports. But because of the amount of money tied up in sports media, some brands don’t feel comfortable making that jump. My hope is to attract those brands through the stances we make to reach sports fans on an outlet they can trust.”
Lee’s approach on YouTube is to present each conversation as if he were talking with one of his friends. While most of his content consists of feature pieces centered on a single topic, he is also exploring expansion opportunities, including the possibility of launching a podcast.
However, Lee is no different from any other creator when it comes to the continued rise of artificial intelligence. While he admits using AI to help research projects before verifying the information himself, he also has concerns, especially because his content lives on YouTube, which is owned by Google.
“I have concerns about how my videos are being used to train AI and misinformation being spread through AI,” says Lee. “I’m working for Google in some capacity. There’s a lot of conversation about how Google is using YouTube for its own AI training… But I worry most about the way it affects the future of written journalism overall.”
With trust in traditional journalism declining, Lee has seen trust between creators and their audiences continue to grow. In many ways, that relationship has become more important than ever, given the endless options for news, opinion, and entertainment.
“That level of intimacy and trust you have with the audience boils down to everything you do. From the scripts you write to the camera lens I use,” said Lee. “That kind of trust is important to build in a day where many people don’t trust major media outlets.”
In an industry where so many careers are measured by the logos on a business card, Lee has found success by removing one altogether.
The layoff that once felt like the end of a dream instead became the catalyst for building something entirely his own. He no longer answers to network executives or programming mandates. He answers only to his audience and to the standards he has set for himself.
Along the way, that independence has attracted interest from venture capital investors eager to be part of what he’s building, further validating the risk he chose to take.
For a generation of sports journalists who grew up believing ESPN was the ultimate destination, Lee’s story offers a different perspective. Sometimes the biggest career break isn’t getting hired by the industry’s biggest brand. It’s finding the confidence to build one of your own.
John Mamola is Barrett Media’s sports editor and daily sports columnist. He brings over two decades of experience (Chicago, Tampa/St Petersburg) in the broadcast industry with expertise in brand management, sales, promotions, producing, imaging, hosting, talent coaching, talent development, web development, social media strategy and design, video production, creative writing, partnership building, communication/networking with a long track record of growth and success. He is a five-time recognized top 20 program director in a major market via Barrett Medi’s Top 20 series and has been honored internally multiple times as station/brand of the year (Tampa, FL) and employee of the month (Tampa, FL) by iHeartMedia. Connect with John by email at John@BarrettMedia.com.
linktr.ee/johnmamolaJoon Lee Reveals How He’s TurnedJoon Lee Reveals How He’s Turned
The post Joon Lee Reveals How He’s Turned an ESPN Layoff Into a Thriving YouTube Career appeared first on Barrett Media.
Discover more from NAIRAVOICE.COM.NG
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
