Jared Stillman didn’t blink when he was asked to host solo in November. In fact, neither did anyone at ESPN 102.5 The Game in Nashville, even though the station knew it would have to undergo a search to find his next co-host. Floyd Reese, a former GM of the Houston Oilers and Tennessee Titans, announced his intentions late last year to resign as the co-host of Jared & The GM. Stillman had hosted solo before and it was an incredible luxury for the station, because there wasn’t a mass panic to hurry and fill the spot. Instead, The Game took its time and carefully vetted each candidate to find the best partner for Stillman in afternoon drive.
“I’ve done solo shows before so doing them in November, December and at the beginning of the year wasn’t that hard for me,” said Stillman. “By being able to do a solo show it gave us the opportunity to take our time.”
102.5 The Game being able to take its time with the search, meant the station discovered Caroline Fenton, a social media producer at ESPN in Bristol. Amidst tons of other applicants, the fit seemed natural from the beginning.
“They interviewed a lot of people,” Stillman said. “A lot of people wanted to be on an afternoon drive show in Nashville. I was able to get on a Zoom with her and I thought she was great. She came to Nashville and we got to really know her.”
Things move fast in this industry. After spending a week behind the scenes learning all of the digital elements the station had to offer, she was soon making her debut as the new co-host on Stillman and Company. April 5th was her first full day on the show, just in time for the stretch run for the NFL Draft and smack dab in the middle of the Predators’ regular season.
“I thought it was really well played out,” Stillman said. “I definitely think it’s probably better right now since we’re in the middle of a hockey season and it looks like the Predators are going to make the playoffs. That’s a big deal around here, because we’re the flagship station for the Predators. We had a plan and because of that it’s made the first week a lot easier. What we were doing, it wasn’t like, hey, here’s the mic, go. It was like, hey, here’s the segment you’re going to be a little bit more active and here’s the segment where you’re going to be a little less active. Or even, here’s what we’re going to want digitally. Caroline is really smart and she’s really talented so those things weren’t very difficult at all.”
Stillman has every club in the bag you need as a sports radio host. He can host solo, he can host with the former player or coach and he can even host with someone who wants to share as many strong opinions as him. No matter the situation in the studio, not only can he handle it, but he has the confidence and the talent to turn it into really compelling radio. He’s done different types of shows but this one will signal a very important step for the development of his career.
“It’s kind of like different genres of movies,” Stillman said. “Some guys are comedy actors, some guys are drama guys and some guys are action guys. Then you have someone like Ryan Reynolds who can do all of them. For me, this is a really important step for my development as a host. I try not to make it about me, or think that it’s about me, but it’s a really important step in my development. Floyd was a management guy, but it’s all the same with the ex-coach, ex-GM, ex-player, it’s kind of the same concept. I’ve done those shows and this is a little different.. This is like a Colin Cowherd show or a Bobby Bones show. It’s not just one guy, there’s a crew.
“When we decided to make the show more of a company, I didn’t think we would get someone as talented as Caroline, but our producer Ian, he does a fantastic job on the air and off the air. For me it’s a different experience, because it’s a different kind of show, but that doesn’t mean I don’t think we’re not able to get listeners what they want every day and entertain them, which is really what the whole point is anyway.”
Nashville still has one of the newer franchises in the NHL, but it takes a backseat to nobody when it comes to passion within its fanbase. The state of Tennessee has long been labeled a football state, and that’s still probably true, but you better know hockey if you’re going to talk sports in the Nashville area. Fenton has quickly transitioned herself into daily hockey talk, but knowing exactly what’s happening on the ice can be intimidating for someone that didn’t grow up in a hockey market.
“Hockey is important because that’s what the people here care about,” said Stillman. “It’s like when I worked in Louisville and it was all about college sports. It was all about Louisville and Kentucky. I think Caroline is like any new host when they go into a different city, where they have to feel it out. It doesn’t mean they don’t know what they’re talking about or they’re not knowledgeable but even I had to learn some things when I got here and I grew up here. I do think Caroline has worked really hard off the air to master it.
“I think too much in radio, and I think this is a much larger issue than Caroline, but we just put a microphone in someone’s face and say go. There’s not an education process. I’ve been in situations where someone stuck a microphone in my face and said go. I just don’t think that’s the best way to do this. Ryan Porth has been our program director for five years and he has the experience on how to bring somebody up.”
Football always rates in every single market in the country, but when it comes to basketball, baseball, hockey or any other sport, it’s pretty much a case-by-case basis. Nashville loves hockey but is it an easy sport to talk about? Is it difficult to make the game sound interesting on radio with so many regular season games?
“You may wear jeans and khakis every day but if you work at Lululemon, you better figure out how to sell yoga pants,” Stillman said. “People care about the Predators, so, you’ve got to watch. Some of our strongest periods were when we did four hours on the Predators during their Stanley Cup run in 2017 and their Presidents Cup season in 2018. I would laugh because here’s Floyd Reese, a 36-year NFL veteran and here he is talking about the power play. And the people loved it. I don’t think it’s any different from any other sport. The one thing you cannot do in sports talk radio right now, no matter the sport, if your audience cares, you can’t look at the game and say, oh, today’s game doesn’t matter so forget about it. Every game matters. How much it matters is how much you think it matters.
“I use Felger and Mazz in Boston as an example. When I used their model, you listen to those guys and every Celtics game matters. Every time they lose they want to talk about blaming the coach. Those guys will go on rants about somebody’s three at bats in a May 13th game with the Red Sox and they will literally drive an hour on someone going 0-3 with a walk and it’s like ‘what are we paying this guy for!’. It moves the needle and I think everyone in sports talk radio needs to adopt that with their own team. Local sports talk radio is not going away, because it’s in live time. Podcasts aren’t. Hosts have to look at what matters to the audience and if it matters to the audience for them to invest three hours of their life watching that game, then it should matter enough to you to watch it and it should matter enough to you to find ways to make discussing that game interesting.”
Give a ton of kudos to 102.5 The Game and how they’ve made the transition as easy as possible for Fenton in the afternoons. Also, give the same amount of kudos to Fenton for buying into what she was being sold and working tirelessly to perfect it. Really, how the station handled this hiring should be a learning tool for others across the country.
But though Stillman and Company seems to have hit the ground running and are hitting their stride, has the identity of the show already been completely formed?
“I try not to predict things like that too far in advance,” Stillman said. “The show is pretty much what this show was built on way back in 2016, which was strong opinions with the Titans and the Predators and whatever else people in Nashville are talking about. I don’t think that’s going to change. We are an opinion show and I don’t ever foresee that changing. I think Caroline is ready to bring her opinions.”
Tyler McComas is a columnist for BSM and a sports radio talk show host in Norman, OK where he hosts afternoon drive for SportsTalk 1400. You can find him on Twitter @Tyler_McComas or you can email him at TylerMcComas08@yahoo.com.
