Sports Radio Needs A Few Radio Guys

Great hosts are entertainers. It is the single most important personality trait for someone with an interest in being on air. 

You also want your host to be a die hard sports fan. When games are on, a great host is either watching at home or sitting in the press box, taking in the action and thinking about what they are going to say the next day. These men and women are “sports guys”. Given the wide variety of entertainment options on TV, radio, and digital platforms, they will always choose a game. 

Talk to any good PD and he will tell you that sports guys are important to a station. You can’t develop compelling takes and arguments if you don’t know all of the details of the biggest stories. But those PDs will also tell you that a station staffed entirely by sports guys will be missing an element that makes shows special and memorable. 

If “sports radio” needs a lot of sports guys, it stands to reason that the format needs a few radio guys too. 

When I first realized I was a radio guy more than I was a sports guy, I found myself wondering what my value to the format was. I love college football. I tend to watch 15-20 games every Saturday in the fall. I love my Boston Celtics. After that, I am pretty casual in terms of my fandom. Unless a team I love is playing, there are plenty of shows I’ll choose to watch over just some game that is on tv. 

Sports guys think about the angles and the stories. Radio guys think about how to best present them. The radio guys that sports stations hire need to know sports, but their passion needs to be creativity. 

You don’t choose to be one or the other. Sports guys can be radio guys and vice versa. The separation largely comes in what you get the most enjoyment from – the games or the content. 

Radio guys can make for great hosts. Look at Dan Le Batard and Jim Rome. Both are all-timers at what they do. They are both very knowledgeable about sports and are interesting thinkers. But both also have a history of playing with the format and creating a new version of sports talk – a normal that is normal only to their audience. 

Now, look at someone like Mike Greenberg. That is undeniably a sports guy. He knows everything about every game and team, but he also knows the value of radio formatics. Can you name anyone in our industry that is better at teases? That requires a dedication to and appreciation of the craft.

Personally, when I look at the positions at a sports radio station, I want my producers and programmers to be radio guys. Those are people I want constantly thinking about how to make content that stands out. We’re coming out of a year where everyone struggled to make budget and ad spending fell across several categories. Your content creators need to be guided by voices that are thinking about how topics can be packaged in a way that also generates ad dollars. 

When hiring producers and third mics, I have long been an advocate of looking at morning show staffers from music formats. Every show needs a voice in the room that challenges long standing sports radio habits. Why do we have to do an interview? Why do we have to play nice with the home team? Why can’t we acknowledge some of the absurdity in front of us? 

Some of those questions have some very valid answers and it is great when the education goes both ways. Without the objection and the challenge though, every sports radio show would sound the same. That isn’t good for the shows and it isn’t great for the format in general. 

Radio guys too often get a bad wrap. The stereotype is a morning zoo jock that is in a new market every year, ripping and reading content off of some national prep sheet, and still making Monica Lewinsky jokes. But the stereotype doesn’t have to be the target.

Sports radio would be well-served by adding voices who’s pop culture references are more modern and relevant. Our format would benefit from the guidance of people not raised with the “rules” we take as gospel. The format is built on the knowledge and opinions of men and women that live and breathe the players and games, but the format expands and broadens its appeal by adding people to the mix that challenge those men and women to do more than they have in the past. 

Demetri Ravanos

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.