14-Year ESPN Journey

Ariel tells a story about his experience working at ESPN, which was his childhood dream job.

"I always wanted to work at ESPN - that was the end goal. As a young kid on vacation in the United States with my family, my brothers and I would watch SportsCenter on loop in the hotel. They would have one episode that they would tape and repeat over and over. I was just so taken by the magic of sports television, the characters, and the highlights.

When I got there, right off the bat I was disappointed. The first few months at ESPN were very hard because I had this vision of what it would be like - the resources, the commitment to excellent content and coverage, attention to detail - and it honestly just wasn't what I expected.

Over time we found our groove and I got to do fun things. I tried to check off as many boxes as possible - hosting a radio show, doing an E60 profile on Daniel Cormier, NBA sidelines, Outside the Lines, SportsCenter. I was trying to do as much as possible because I knew I wasn't going to be a 25-year lifer. I came to that conclusion pretty early on.

It was tough going from doing a show in a beautiful studio that I helped design in New York City to a very small studio with not the same resources, then driving 4 hours back and forth to Bristol, Connecticut twice a week on Mondays and Wednesdays."