There would be no sports radio if not for Jeff Smulyan. The man has lead a life any sports fan would envy and next year, fans will get to read about it in his autobiography Never Ride a Roller Coaster Upside Down.
The founder of Emmis Communications is responsible for launching WFAN, the country’s first all-sports talk radio station, on 1050 AM in New York City in 1987. It is the reason Barrett Sports Media named an award in his honor that is given to people with undeniable, lasting impact on sports radio. The award will be presented to former SVP of ESPN Audio and President of ABC Networks Traug Keller in 2022.
Smulyan is releasing the book in 2022, although no specific details were available. The book will surely also tell stories from outside of the radio world. Jeff Smulyan once owned the Seattle Mariners and threatened to relocate the team in an effort to replace the Kingdome.
“I’ve certainly had some remarkable experiences in my career, from radio, to TV, to Major League Baseball, to being an Ambassador and even having a network nationalized in Hungary. After promising friends and family for years that I would write it all down, I’ve finally decided to do it. Some of it is wild, some of it is unbelievable, but it is all 100 percent true,” Jeff Smulyan said in a press release.
