How a basketball podcast between 3 college friends became 'The Starters,' a hit TV show and a staple in the NBA world

via Turner Sports

• "The Starters" is a nightly TV show and podcast on NBA TV that has a ravenous fan following and is a staple of the NBA world.
• The show began as "The Basketball Jones" 13 years ago when three college friends, J.E. Skeets, Tas Melas, and Jason Doyle, started a basketball podcast, recording from their homes in the early mornings before their day jobs.
• The group landed at Canadian media company theScore and continued to add members, eventually growing to six.
• In 2013, the team was hired by NBA TV to make a nightly TV show in addition to their podcast, continuing an impressive run that truly started from the bottom.

"The Starters" are like the cool kids at the party during the NBA's All-Star Weekend.

During the weekend's events, the four stars of "The Starters" - J.E. Skeets, Tas Melas, Trey Kerby, and Leigh Ellis - can be seen greeting fans, media members, NBA players, and former players who are now their colleagues.

Over the weekend, they even bought beer for everybody.

"The Starters," a hit podcast and TV show on NBA TV, hosted a live podcast from The Unknown Brewing Company during the 2019 All-Star Weekend in Charlotte, North Carolina. The event drew, in Ellis' estimation, around 350 people, to watch the Saturday night All-Star competitions, then listen to the recording of the podcast, which reflected on the night's events, with humorous musings on the group's experiences throughout the weekend.

The turnout of die-hard fans, many of whom recited each member's introductory routines for the podcast, was the latest sign of the show's growing popularity and success. What started as a podcast between three college friends 13 years ago, recorded in the mornings before their day jobs, is now a staple of the NBA world.

As Melas told Business Insider, "We're part of the community, that's for sure." 

Business Insider

The Starters hosted a live podcast from the 2019 All-Star Weekend.

A rigorous early stage

"The Starters" are a true, started-from-the-bottom, success story.

Melas, Skeets, and producers Jason Doyle and Matt Osten all met while studying Radio and Television Arts at Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada.

When they graduated, Doyle suggested to Skeets and Melas that they start a podcast, a then-emerging medium Doyle had taken a liking to. Skeets and Melas settled on the NBA as the focus, as both were ravenous fans.

"The Basketball Jones" started as a home-made project between the three friends. They began by recording twice a week at Doyle's house, then eventually made it a daily podcast, waking up at 5:30-6 A.M. to plan out the show, record via Skype, then go to their day jobs. (Melas worked as a freelancer and later at TSN while Skeets was a physician recruiter, and Doyle, a sound editor at a production studio.)

The show grew steadily during that time. Melas and Skeets have said in past interviews and podcasts that although they would occasionally get discouraged by the busy schedule and lack of any major breakthrough, a passionate fan base and praise via emails kept them going.

New additions proved crucial

Osten, who went to law school after graduating from Ryerson, re-connected with his classmates in 2009 and joined the show. The podcast was already growing in popularity, thanks to Skeets' (real name Phil Elder) writing for sites like Deadspin and Yahoo's NBA blog "Ball Don't Lie."

Osten would eventually help the show land a deal with Canadian media outlet theScore, which enabled the then-quartet to focus solely on the show.

Even then, despite a cult-like following, "The Basketball Jones" wasn't officially part of the NBA community. For instance, they paid their way to the 2009 NBA All-Star Game and didn't even have credentials to the events. They instead attended brand-sponsored events with the players and did various bits on camera from outside the arena.

In 2010, they added Kerby to the team. Kerby told Uproxx in 2017 that he had been a long-time fan of "The Basketball Jones" blog, frequently visiting the comments section. He began contributing to Yahoo when Skeets was the editor and took over the blog when The Basketball Jones joined theScore. The other members eventually cleared the way for Kerby to move from Chicago to Toronto to join the team.

The following year, the quintet met Ellis, who was producing web content for various sports for theScore. Ellis grew up a hardcore NBA fan in Australia and said he frequently tried to make himself known to The Basketball Jones crew by helping them with the odd project.

When the NBA entered a lockout in 2011, The Basketball Jones pitched the "No Season Required" tour in which they traveled to 10 U.S. cities to do live shows on basketball, regardless of whether there was actual basketball being played.

"I was just walking by their office - which I often did, trying to make myself known," Ellis said, "And Matt and J.D. were in there, and they said, 'What are you doing in November? ... You wanna come on a trip with us?'"

Ellis joined the tour, filling in as an extra hand on all projects. When the lockout ended and the season began, they extended Ellis an invitation to join the team, which he eagerly accepted.

The move to NBA TV

NBA TV

In 2013, the team moved from theScore to Turner-owned NBA TV after learning theScore would be purchased by Rogers Communications, leaving their futures with the company uncertain.

Their move to Turner included a daily TV show in addition to their podcast, and they rebranded as "The Starters." They also relocated from Toronto to Atlanta, Georgia; the members have all credited their wives and girlfriends for sacrificing for the show.

The adjustment to TV took some time, according to The Starters themselves.

"The higher-ups who hired us at NBA TV didn't want to change us creatively, whatsoever," Melas said. "I think naturally, going to a bigger platform and going into a daily TV studio, which we weren't used to doing, kinda changed us a little in being a little stodgy, a little stuffy, a little bit unlike ourselves for a few years."

Gradually, the show began to find its legs. The Starters have an outline of what they want to cover each show, of course, but it remains unscripted. Segments include "Crossfire," where two of the stars battle to give the best answers to topics; "Weekend Whoopsies," a blooper reel; and "The Pick 'em Payoff," where the loser of a monthly picks contest has to endure something embarrassing or difficult, like chugging egg nog or doing the entire show while holding a shake weight.

The show occasionally has NBA players on as guests, inviting them to play other types of games rather than take part in more standard interviews.

Ellis said the show used to receive a fair amount of hate mail from people who claimed they could do The Starters' jobs by simply showing up to work.

However, Ellis noted that what casual fans might not realize is the amount of work and energy that goes into the show: hours of watching basketball - not easy with children, Ellis said - plus always-active Slack and WhatsApp groups for planning the show.

In Ellis' estimation, some of that criticism might be because"The Starters" is a fan-based show - none of the stars have any actual experience in professional basketball, and none of them claim to be reporters with inside information.

"If we're hearing any stories, it's about stories that happened 25 years ago from the retired players [at NBA TV]," Kerby said.

Nonetheless, the show has become a staple of the NBA world. Their use of the term "wedgie" - when the ball gets stuck between the rim and the backboard - has become common parlance on Twitter and NBA broadcasts.

One segment on the show even included Shaquille O'Neal giving Skeets an actual wedgie.

In another instance, the show challenged former NBA player, analyst, and current San Antonio Spurs executive Brent Barry to sneak in unusual terms on NBA broadcasts.

The show has even gotten to the point where they're getting help from current players at the All-Star weekend media sessions.

"It is nice now that we've been on for five seasons - we're in the middle of our sixth - players know at least who we are," Kerby said. "So, if we're close to the podiums, they'll look at us and say, 'Oh, I've seen you guys on TV before. Ask me a question.' It helps a little bit."

A ravenous fan base

The Starters' live podcast from Charlotte only reinforced that what puts the show over the top is the fan engagement.

The Starters are beloved for their basketball analysis, but it's their personalities that put them in a separate category from other NBA-themed podcasts.

Never is this more apparent than on their podcast "The Drop," which includes segments like the "pun gun," where they riff on NBA-themed puns; "rapid fire," where NBA-themed topics usually take a more personal turn about each of the members' everyday lives; or Osten's "Complainted Area," where he gripes about benign aspects of everyday life.

"The biggest compliment we always get is like, 'We love your podcast and your show because it's like a bunch of my buddies talking about basketball,'" Skeets said. "They feel like because we do so many shows and we share so much about ourselves personally ... they feel like they really know you. And they do! I mean, to some extent, they really know the four of us that are on all the time." 

The non-basketball segments have even got so popular that during the NBA offseason, the show still produces summertime podcasts that are about anything but basketball.

"I think what's really important to us is that if you like the show, you listen or you tune in every day for us," Ellis said, adding: "The show's strength is the four of us first."

The podcast's "mailbag" segment often includes fans - many from all over the world - writing in on an NBA topic, but then turning the question inward for the show's stars to reflect on themselves humorously.

While reflecting on their appeal to fans, the chemistry among the hosts revealed itself in real-time.

"You can get good basketball insight from a lot of places," Melas said. "But you can't hear about Leigh's banana-eating habits anywhere-"

"Or the way he sits on a toilet," Skeets chimed in, referring to a podcast episode in which Ellis described an unusual way of mounting a toilet.

"It makes us far more endearing," Melas added.

"And that's why the questions are getting weirder and weirder," said Kerby. "We've been doing the podcast for so long, it's like, we've done this question before ... We need people emailing us weird stuff."

While discussing factions of fans that tend to gravitate toward each of the members, Kerby's answer took a very "Starters"-esque turn.

"We just hope the rankings change over time," he said. "When Migos came out, Quavo was the No. 1 guy, but then it eventually it changed to Offset, and now people are saying maybe it's Takeoff!

"That's how it is with The Starters."