It’s been more than a month since Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell tested positive for Covid-19. The next day, March 12, was the last time we saw live sports of any sort. The NBA was the first to call off the action. Then it was the NCAA basketball tournament. The NHL, MLS, and Major League Baseball all followed suit.
Since that happened, we have written a lot about how it was time for sports radio hosts to plunge the depths of their creativity and show listeners just how valuable they are even without games to talk about. It’s not that the sentiment was untrue, but it is easier to be creative when there’s an anchor like the NFL Draft. It is a major sports story, especially for the cities involved, that you can always come back to to avoid straying too far off the reservation.
For some shows, it doesn’t matter what else is happening in the world. Their market is a football town. Despite what sport is in season and playing live games, those hosts would still be devoting a lot of time to the NFL Draft.
Doug and Wolf is one of those shows. The morning men on Arizona Sports 98.7 say they would have certainly been working in some talk about the Diamondbacks and maybe the NCAA Tournament, but the Cardinals are the local team that drives the bus. Doug Franz told me that the only thing Covid-19 changed about his show’s draft coverage is that they didn’t have the ability to make some bits sound as polished as they’d have liked.
“We have been mostly an NFL/Cardinals show for a long, long time. It plays the hits here. It’s what this market wants, so we were all draft all the time.”
For others, deep dives on prospects and mock drafts represented welcomed new territory to mine in a sports desert. Jonathan Zaslow of 790 the Ticket says he and partner Amber Wilson have never pretended to be draft experts, and with all Miami has to offer, their show usually doesn’t spend as much time talking about the event as it did this year.
“Miami is not a college football market, and that’s reflected in our TV ratings every year. On top of that, our show is at it’s best when we’re not even talking sports. So, we wouldn’t normally spend a ton of time on the draft on Zaslow and Amber, but, this year was a legit perfect storm for draft talk in Miami. We were all stuck at home, begging for some kind of sporting event to watch…AND, the Dolphins were arguably the most unpredictable team in the draft, centered around the most polarizing player in the draft in [Alabama quarterback Tua] Tagovailoa.”
At ESPN Cleveland, Aaron Goldhammer told me that the NFL Draft has always had a major presence. After all, most seasons are about what could happen next season for Browns fans.He described the station’s annual draft parties as “sensory overloads”. No amount of talk on a show could make up for the loss of something like that.
“When the Browns took Johnny Manziel a couple of years ago, the video from our draft party went viral,” he says. “I mean hundreds of thousands of views. It was on SportsCenter immediately after with people jumping up and down and hugging each other like the Browns had just won the Super Bowl. It was one of my favorite Cleveland football moments that I have ever been a part of.”
All of ESPN Cleveland’s shows tried to bring that excitement to the air this year. The station was blanketed in draft talk, even launching a new show at night with Tony Grossi called Countdown to the Draft.
Whatever the thinking was previously, all three stations embraced the local team and their roll in the one major, uninterrupted sporting event we knew for certain was left on the 2020 calendar.
That event is over now. So, what comes next? Is there any sports anchor stations can count on being able to come back to or wrap their arms around?
For Zaslow, he says Miami isn’t quite done talking about its new quarterback, although the story has pivoted to something with significantly shorter legs. Some fans had wondered if Tagovailoa would ask to wear 13, which is what he wore at Alabama. It has been retired by the Dolphins in honor of franchise icon Dan Marino.
“We’re all wondering what number Tua is going to wear, because fans want to buy the jersey. He said he’ll wear whatever number they give him, but he didn’t need to assure anyone he wasn’t going to ask for #13, because it’s one of just three numbers the organization has retired.”
Doug Franz doesn’t mince words when I ask him that question. He says you can’t point to a sports topic as safe harbor. The only way to keep the audience engaged is to have everyone on the show doing their best work. He singles out his producer Erin Maloney as the lynchpin of Doug & Wolf.
“It’s times like these where the best producers are going to shine, and our show is lucky to have one despite how young she is.”
One of the ways that Maloney has shined for Doug & Wolf is by organizing special programming weeks. The station will soon announce a “legends week,” which will see the hosts talking to some of the biggest names in Phoenix sports history. Franz says a programming event like that wouldn’t be possible without a company that has stood behind the show for so long.
“I think this is where we truly benefit from working for a company that didn’t freak out when we had a bad book or two and didn’t act like the world was going to come to an end, because we are in our 14th year together. When you have that kind of feeling for each other and that kind of relationship with the people in the city, you are able to call them up and say ‘Hey, we’re hurting. Bail us out!'”.
All three hosts I spoke with agreed on one thing. Right now, hosts have to be comfortable getting personal. Everyone listening is having a similar experience. There may never have been a better time to share personal stories and connect with your audience on a human level.
“We know our fans in this market. We know the things they find compelling and interesting, even if they’re not specifically in the realm of sports, even if they are related to things about living in this unique time,” Goldhammer says. “What I’m realizing is day-to-day we sort of have this blank canvas and we can paint whatever the heck we want on it!”
Sports isn’t a bad word for Goldhammer and his co-host on The Really Big Show, Tony Rizzo. They are happy, though, not to have the obligations of talking about games or events that may not actually be that important to the Cleveland sports fan. They also know they can offer listeners better entertainment than constantly speculating on when sports comes back.
“About a week in, we came up with a mantra for how we are going to approach this time. It is an opportunity for us to have fun in new and different ways that we have never tried before. Let’s liberate ourselves and take the shackles off completely, and let’s see where that can take us.”
Zaslow says he and Amber Wilson were built for an event like this. He compared this time to summer. Miami isn’t a market where sports talk can thrive on baseball alone, so the duo has had plenty of practice with topics outside of a sports audience’s regular expectations.
“I think we’ve always thrived in that spot because we really just want to laugh and have a good time, and make lots of fun of each other,” he says. “She loves her trashy television, I love movies and wrestling. We like talking about past relationships. We even started a new segment on Friday’s called, ‘A Story From Amber’s Dating Past.’
The duo has also added a virtual happy hour for their audience on Thursday nights. Zaslow and Amber isn’t only not worried about a life without sports. They are actively using this time to strengthen their bond with the audience.
“Nothing changes. My job is to entertain people no matter what way I choose to entertain them,” says Franz. He says he told his girlfriend 25 years ago that anything that happens between them is possible fodder for a future show. She is now his wife and Franz says she is on board with the rule.
“Just because sports is gone, that doesn’t change my job. We can’t sit around as talk show hosts and blast GMs who don’t like the NFL Draft because of the new set up and then turn around and then turn around whine about the situation we’re in.”
Franz insists that there is no single story that can drive things going forward like the NFL Draft has for the past month and a half. His parting words from our conversation perfectly encapsulate that and they will be how I end this article.
“It’s our job to create the entertainment value. That is what we’re going to attempt to do.”
Demetri Ravanos is a columnist and features writer for Barrett Media. He is also the creator of The Sports Podcast Festival, and a previous host on the Chewing Clock and Media Noise podcasts. He occasionally fills in on stations across the Carolinas in addition to hosting Panthers and College Football podcasts. His radio resume includes stops at WAVH and WZEW in Mobile, AL, WBPT in Birmingham, AL and WBBB, WPTK and WDNC in Raleigh, NC.
You can find him on Twitter @DemetriRavanos or reach him by email at DemetriTheGreek@gmail.com.
