This was supposed to be an exciting week in the world of sports. We were to fill out our brackets, enjoy the play in game, and get ready for another exciting NCAA college basketball tournament starting tomorrow.
But with the entire country focused on a national crisis courtesy of the Coronavirus, the tournament is history, the sports world has gone dark, and bracket busting will have to wait until 2021.
Or does it?
I realize we’re dealing with serious issues, and the uncertainty of what lies ahead has many of us frustrated, nervous, and concerned, but if we don’t allow room to laugh, debate, and do what we’ve always done, we’ll soon go crazy. We’ve been lucky to have a flood of NFL activity to keep us engaged, but big name signings and trades won’t last forever, so we’re going to need more material to keep ourselves and our audiences entertained.
For the past week, I’ve thought a lot about sports radio content that could have mass appeal for hosts and stations. Everyone needs stuff to talk about because segments built around your day at home, the best food you’ve eaten, and the Netflix series you’ve started watching won’t keep people listening for long. Making things harder is the fact that we’re trying to talk about sports with our usual passion, but real life issues are a bigger priority.
That brings me to something we put together to help make your job easier. We think it’s fun, relevant to all markets, and tailor made for sports radio talk shows. We may not be able to put games back on the court, but who says we can’t have some fun? If brackets are synonymous with March, why not create a tournament around something everyone knows – SportsCenter.
The bracket above shows our Greatest SportsCenter Anchors Tournament. We’ve come up with our field of 64, and encourage you to print it out, make your selections, and share it with friends and co-workers. We’ll be posting it on social media too so folks can retweet it and begin creating conversation with fans around it. It’s a universal topic that should appeal to sports fans everywhere, and help take their minds off the real life chaos even if it’s just for 5-10 minutes.
We had the idea to do this last year, but held off because it would’ve been rushed. Demetri Ravanos and I were on a call late last week and had kicked around the idea of doing a World Illness tournament since the Coronavirus has dominated the headlines, but the more we thought about it, it just didn’t feel right to go that direction. After ditching that idea, we brainstormed a few other things, and the SC 64 came up in conversation. We then decided to put the wheels in motion and make it happen.
What’s fun about these projects is there’s so many ways things can go. SportsCenter has been an immensely popular show for decades, and it’s featured a large number of exceptional broadcasters. As is the case with any bracket/tournament, you can debate all day who should be slotted 1st, 10th, 16th, who missed the cut, etc., but we feel good about the layout, and hope you guys can have some fun with it. The 1st round alone has some cool matchups, and I think you guys will enjoy the names we came up with for the 4 regions.
To determine the results, we will introduce poll questions on Twitter, and let people decide who moves on. Each poll will be live for 24 hours. The schedule above shows when each matchup will take place, and your willingness to hit the RT button is appreciated.
This is content that sports fans can play along with. It should help generate listener interest and reaction. The goal right now is to add entertainment to our listeners lives, and keep them from thinking about the stress created by the Coronavirus. This helps you do that.
Now the only question left to be answered is, who wins the tournament? Voting starts tomorrow.
Jason Barrett is the President and Founder of Barrett Media since the company was created in September 2015. Prior to its arrival, JB served as a sports radio programmer, launching brands such as 95.7 The Game in San Francisco, and 101 ESPN in St. Louis. He also spent time programming SportsTalk 950 in Philadelphia, 590 The Fan KFNS in St. Louis, and ESPN 1340/1390 in Poughkeepsie, NY. Jason also worked on-air and behind the scenes in local radio at 101.5 WPDH, WTBQ 1110AM, and WPYX 106.5. He also spent two years on the national stage, producing radio shows for ESPN Radio in Bristol, CT. Among them included the Dan Patrick Show, and GameNight.
You can find JB on Twitter @SportsRadioPD. He’s also reachable by email at Jason@BarrettMedia.com.
