There’ve been some crazy days in Kyle Brown’s radio career, but nothing compares to last week. It all started with a station rebrand on Monday. As the PD, Brown knew his day was going to be extremely full with the brand transition from 710 ESPN to Seattle Sports. And it was. So much so, that when he arrived back at work the next morning, the front desk receptionist made a comment about it.
“Our front desk receptionist said, oh you came back, I didn’t know if you would after yesterday,” laughed Brown. “We had a laugh about that.”
Little did he know, but Tuesday was going to be even crazier. Two hours after his back-and-forth with the receptionist, the biggest news of the NFL offseason dropped. Russell Wilson was being traded to the Denver Broncos. The craziest week of Brown’s radio career started with a station rebrand and the biggest trade in Seahawks history. And it was only Tuesday.
“It’s number one with a bullet,” Brown said. “I hope to not repeat it again, to be honest with you. But we’ve had a ton of fun.”
Seattle Sports doesn’t view itself as just a radio station. It views itself as a sports media brand with a radio station, app, and website. That’s a big reason for the rebrand. Granted, it’s still the exclusive home of ESPN in Seattle, but the Worldwide Leader will no longer be in the name. Instead, Seattle Sports is out to show everyone it’s a standalone brand.
“We launched the station in 2009 and 13 years later we feel we’re at a point to launch our own brand,” Brown said. “We launched with ESPN as a big credibility play in the market as the new kids on the block. Now that we’re over a decade into it we thought it was a chance to own our own brand.
“Really, the way we look at it, for years, we presented ourselves as a radio station that also has an app and a website. This was planting a stake in the ground and saying, going forward, we’re a sports media brand with a radio station, app and website. All three are critically important. It’s a way to view ourselves as content creators, a sports media brand and as a radio station.”
That identity has even shifted to the sales side. It’s not just about selling terrestrial radio, it’s about selling digital and the other unique forms of content Seattle Sports provides.
“We’re not just selling a radio station,” Brown said. “We’re seeking an all-encompassing product. That’s audio, video, written, however the audience engages with us, we’re there.”
That includes the live video stream of the shows that’s grown significantly in popularity. Logos of the businesses that sponsor the stream are shown at the bottom, as well as a ticker that keeps viewers up to speed with the latest stories in Seattle.
“We went to a full-time video stream right before the pandemic,” Brown said. “And then everyone went on remote and it was, ‘crap, what are we going to do? We’ve launched this product and we’ve got to keep delivering on it.’
“I think that was one of the silver linings of the pandemic is that it forced us to, not just create remote studios for everybody at their house, but figure out how to get them up on video and then sell it by living up to our brand promise. It is currently in its infancy but we want to run video ads during a break in the future.”
It’s not ever fun to watch a future Hall of Fame quarterback get traded to another market. Especially when the city lives and dies with the team. There may eventually be some long-term effects with Russell Wilson leaving town for, but for right now, there’s a short-term gain for Seattle Sports.
“We’re looking at it two ways,” Brown said. “In the short term, Russell Wilson leaving is going to take a big hit on the field but this gave us a huge topic to react to. It also gave the Seahawks multiple picks, including one in the Top 10. So this is going to give us two lives in the short term as we go through the NFL Draft and the search for the next quarterback. But we know we may pay for it down the road in the fall, especially if the Seahawks take a step back. It could certainly have an impact on Monday morning listenership when we have Pete Carroll on and they’re rolling out a 4-13 product.”
Last week was unlike any other Brown has experienced in the business, but he still wouldn’t change his job for anything. As a kid growing up in western Washington State listening to Seattle sports radio with his dad, he knew the inside of a radio station is where he wanted to be. In the early stages of his career, he was there a lot as a weekend board-op, holiday board-up and for all of the other non-glamorous shifts.
That’s one of the reasons it was so special when he was named PD in 2019. He literally worked from the bottom all the way to his dream role. And he hasn’t looked back since.
“To call it a dream job would be an understatement,” Brown said. “I knew from eight years old, working in sports radio in Seattle was a dream job. To get that was the greatest honor I could possibly receive in this building. I started here as an intern in 2009 about a month after the station launched. I was a weekend board-op, a holiday board-op, I worked every Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Years, 4th of July, and just climbed from there. I remember getting my first full-time board-op shift with Brock and Salk. I remember thinking, this is huge! From there, becoming the producer of the Brock and Salk show, years later. Growing that into an assistant program director role and then getting promoted into the PD job. It’s been something I’ve been so honored to do.”
So how do we find the next generation of Kyle Browns in this industry? How do we get young people in the building and groom them to take sports radio into the next era of media? That was one of the many questions raised at The BSM Summit. Brown watched via the webstream and has a few thoughts.
“For us, it starts with recruitment. We’re going out to colleges in the area and reaching kids there. There was a time where we thought, oh, radio is not the cool thing to do and it’s the outdated medium. We’ve really gotten to them early and shown them, and it speaks to the move we made this week, hey, this isn’t a radio station. We’re not radio hosts doing a radio show. We’re Seattle sports personalities doing a Seattle sports show. It’s available on video stream live. It’s available on our YouTube page, on our app and website.
“I think some of it is the way we present ourselves and really show them that we’re forward-thinking and jump into that digital future. Then I think once they’re in the building it’s giving them opportunities. I think there’s a lot of examples of, ‘hey, I know how to do this, I’m going to do it my way.’ I was fortunate to work in the building to get those opportunities.”
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.
