Why Steve 'Dangle' Glynn is leaving Sportsnet: The noted Leafs fan explains (2024)

Canadian hockey personality Steve “Dangle” Glynn is leaving Sportsnet when the Stanley Cup playoffs conclude later this month, walking away from a legacy media career he once coveted to focus full-time on SDPN Inc., the independent digital competitor he helped launch.

He was planning to make the official announcement in a YouTube video released on Wednesday, days after long-time friend and SDPN co-founder Adam Wylde revealed he was leaving his full-time job as co-host of the morning show at 99.9 Virgin Radio to focus on their new company.

“I’ve really enjoyed working with so many incredible people and making stuff I’m so proud of,” Glynn said on Tuesday. “I’m not excited to leave Sportsnet as much as I am thrilled to continue to build what we’ve created with SDPN.”

Glynn, Wylde and Jesse Blake own the company, which incorporated three years ago and moved into a downtown Toronto office earlier this year. They have four full-time employees and 20 contractors who help create more than a dozen digital sports programs.

“Jesse and Adam have definitely been pulling more than their weight,” said Glynn. “And I want to help in the running of the company, as well as with content creation.”

He leaves Sportsnet after nine hockey seasons. The network had deployed Glynn on a number of platforms over the years, most recently serving as a central figure on Sportsnet’s YouTube channel, as the host and star of watch-along streams during NHL games.

“For me personally, I think it would have been wrong to leave in the middle of the season,” said Glynn. “I committed to doing the season. I wanted to do the season. I wanted to finish out the season.”

In his 2019 memoir, “This Team Is Ruining My Life (But I Love Them),” Glynn writes about the long road he took to land work in Canadian sports television. He once worked as an intern for Sportsnet 590 The Fan, helping guide guests into the studio from the lobby.

Meanwhile, he was growing his own audience independent of the mainstream. Glynn began recording videos for YouTube in 2007, gaining notoriety for his animated reactions to the Maple Leafs, the team he would later allege was ruining his life. (The book became a best-seller in Canada.)

“I’ve been on YouTube long enough to have received a paper cheque,” said Glynn. “Stuff has changed. Now, you can basically create an entire business and hire people using a website you don’t even have to pay to use.

“There’s a lot of things about the future that could use improving, but that’s one of them that hasn’t worked out so bad.”

Wylde, son of Canadian television host Marilyn Denis, had spent more than a decade working in legacy Canadian media. When announcing his departure on their air, he told listeners he felt he “needed to bet on myself” in making the decision to focus full-time on SDPN.

“I’m scared, I’m excited,” Wylde said in an interview with The Athletic on Tuesday. “If I look too far into the future, I get anxious. But it was something that had to happen. We have an opportunity that I think our parents never had.”

He said his mother, who is stepping away from her long-running daytime television show this month, built a successful career in traditional media, but never had the chance to build her own station. In the old landscape, he said, it would have required millions in capital investment for a license and the long list of other start-up costs.

That is not the case in the digital era. The company has three studios on the top floor of its office, just north of Danforth Avenue, near Broadview subway station.

“Obviously, there are some changes in the business itself that partially propelled this, as well,” he said. “If I don’t say that, I would be lying. Anybody who’s been in media the last 15 years knows how much it’s changed.”

Wylde is host of The Steve Dangle Podcast (appearing alongside Glynn and Blake), as well as Agent Provocateur, a podcast with NHL agent Allan Walsh. Away from the microphone, Wylde said he tends to drift toward the business side of SDPN’s operations, while Glynn is involved with content strategy.

“Jesse handles literally everything else,” said Wylde. “He built our app. He built our website. He built our studios. He’s built the YouTube channel, which is 60 to 65 per cent of our business. He’s an unbelievable guy to work with, because he just does stuff.”

He said the company is wholly owned by the three principals, with no outside investors.

“I dropped math in Grade 11 and I have only a high school education,” said Wylde. “I know it doesn’t fill people with confidence, but I’ve run a few businesses on my own, on the side, anyway.

“For the things that you don’t know, you hire people that do, and you fill in the gaps. You read a lot of books.”

While TSN and Sportsnet have endured a years-long campaign of cost reduction — from shuttering a host of all-sports formats to wholesale personnel changes — several independent digital sports media companies have begun to take root.

SDPN has more than a dozen shows on its roster. Glynn has historically avoided thinking very far into the future. (“You ever sort of look up at the night sky?” he said in a 2019 interview. “And if you think a little bit too hard about it, you get freaked out? It’s sort of like that.”)

But he has longer-range ideas for SDPN. He would eventually like to expand its menu offering beyond sports and into discussions around broad topics such as science: “But I’m in no rush.”

“Ideally, we’re going to be around for a while,” he said. “So we’ve got some time to do this right.”

(Photo: Courtesy of SDPN, Inc.)