It’s something that can be your best friend or your worst enemy. No, I’m not talking about women — although that can occasionally be true — I’m talking about emotion.
Many people are triggered more easily than ever these days. It doesn’t take much to send someone into orbit with a thought or opinion. There can be a tendency for sports radio hosts to steer clear and try to avoid touching a nerve. That’s a bad approach. It isn’t good enough to get the audience to think. You have to get the audience to feel. Emotion can be your best friend if you use it to your advantage.
Take Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott for instance. I, like many fans, hated to see Dak suffer a major injury against the New York Giants on Sunday. However, the emotion that people felt regarding his injury was an opportunity to swing the other way. The common emotional response was to criticize Jerry the tyrant Jones along with the Cowboys organization for not giving poor Dak the exact contract he wanted. Dak didn’t get hosed contractually. The Cowboys offered him over $100 million in guaranteed money. He turned it down because he wanted the length of the contract to be four years instead of five. That isn’t getting screwed. That’s making a bet that backfired.
It’s also a chance to point out that this is what can happen when mobile quarterbacks don’t slide. Robert Griffin III’s career was destroyed when his leg transformed to linguine thanks to Haloti Ngata.
This isn’t a black/white debate either; it’s a healthy/unhealthy debate. Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen, who is as white as snow, got knocked out of a game against the New England Patriots last year after getting blasted while running downfield. I love when quarterbacks use their athleticism as long as they slide like Russell Wilson instead of gambling with their health and the team’s chances of winning. If it’s 4th & 3 in the Super Bowl, get the first down no matter what. If it’s 1st & 10 midway through the third quarter against the winless Giants, please slide.
Whether you agree with those thoughts or not, it really doesn’t matter. The emotion that many fans feel toward Dak is the ticket toward getting their attention. Look, the guy has a broken ankle. It’s going to heal. This isn’t an Alex Smith situation that will require 17 surgeries. If the Cowboys don’t sign Dak to a long-term deal, they’ll either franchise him, or he’ll get paid elsewhere. He’s going to be just fine financially. In the meantime, hosts can use the emotion many people feel toward Dak to their advantage.
Ben Maller of FOX Sports Radio did a great job of using emotion to his advantage on Sunday night. The Los Angeles Lakers had just polished off the Miami Heat to win their 17th championship in franchise history. Ben did everything but give the Lakers credit. He said the Lake Show took the path of least resistance to a championship and that they are the least impressive NBA champion in many decades. I see it differently, but Laker fans one after another took the bait hook, line, and sinker. It was entertaining radio because the crew and audience reacted so emotionally.
I had a speech class at Ball State University many moons ago. The teacher constantly stressed the importance of starting a speech with an attention getter. There is no better attention getter than making comments that move the audience emotionally. Even sparking anger isn’t automatically a bad thing. Many listeners react like a lyric from the band Three Days Grace, “I’d rather feel pain than nothing at all.”
The audience will come back for more if the host is compelling. It’s the same as sports fans. There are so many long-suffering fans of franchises that stink to the high heavens. Why do they keep coming back for more even when they’re angry and miserable at times? Because they are emotionally invested.
Former Los Angeles Dodgers play-by-play voice Vin Scully recently joined social media. In the first video he posted, the baseball treasure said, “We might chat about a famous date in baseball, or a player, or a team, and hopefully nothing controversial. This is strictly a meeting of friends having some fun talking about our favorite subjects. So pull up a chair and be ready to join me hopefully in the very near future as we start our careers together on social media.”
I respect Vin’s approach. It works great for him, but sports radio hosts that never touch on controversial subjects are dull. If you don’t move the audience emotionally, you will just blend in. Some of the biggest names in sports media recently stood out by making comments that touched a nerve. Charles Barkley said that the Breonna Taylor shooting death was a different situation than George Floyd or Ahmaud Arbery. Jason Whitlock wrote a column about Maria Taylor and Katie Nolan being privileged in sports media due to their good looks. Stephen A. Smith said that Steve Nash got hired as head coach of the Brooklyn Nets because of white privilege.
I agree with some of those comments and passionately disagree with others. It really doesn’t matter what I think though. What matters is that I reacted to all of the opinions because I was emotionally invested. That’s the name of the game. Get the audience to care. Spark emotion. The job isn’t to be right. The job is to be remembered.
Being a sports radio host is kind of like dancing with the devil without allowing it to destroy you. Toying with the audience’s emotions is a dangerous but necessary game. Emotion can be the enemy of logic, yet it’s also the ally of ratings. Sure, the audience might be too emotional to think straight or to even hear what you’re actually saying. But I guarantee they’ll be invested. That boosts ratings, which in turn helps you eat food each month.
Look for ways to spark positive emotions as well. I’m not pushing for you to royally tick off the audience constantly. There is such a thing as overdoing it. Just don’t be afraid to touch a nerve from time to time. All of this talk about cancel culture makes me laugh. Think of cancel culture like the line from Ed Norton in the movie American History X, “There’s a lot of f—ing hard talk around here and not a lot of follow through.” People might talk tough about disregarding your comments, but they’re incapable. Why? Because they can’t cancel their own emotions. Spark emotion and reap the benefits.
Brian Noe is a columnist for BSM and an on-air host heard nationwide on FOX Sports Radio’s Countdown To Kickoff. Previous roles include stops in Portland, OR, Albany, NY and Fresno, CA. You can follow him on Twitter @TheNoeShow or email him at bnoe@premierenetworks.com.
