Football, basketball, baseball. Sports media in the United States is consistently dominated by these major sports, with storylines aplenty and talking points for debate posed to generate new content geared to bring auspicious ratings and steady revenue.
Throughout the month of March, NCAA March Madness has comprised the preponderance of sports media content, especially due to the fact that 15th seeded Saint Peter’s advanced to the Elite 8, and that Duke and North Carolina will meet in tournament play for the first time this weekend.
Sure, football, basketball and baseball are central to much of America’s sports consumption – but not all of it. Combat sports bring in formidable ratings and revenue for the athletes, leagues and media companies. Pay-per-view fights and large-scale events are quite popular among sports fans. Yet they are rarely spoken about on sports radio, meaning that their content needed to find a home, and that their fans needed to be driven there to find the kind of content they have been looking for.
Marissa Rives is the program director of SiriusXM Fight Nation, the satellite service’s home for combat sports, and she never thought she’d be doing this; that is, until she was exposed to what was possible.
Starting in this industry, according to Rives, often starts with a “frivolous idea,” and growing up as a New York Yankees fan, she became enamored with the idea of covering a professional sports team. Kim Jones, who was the YES Network reporter for Yankees games from 2005 to 2012, interviewed players in the clubhouse after games and followed the team, a job that excited Rives and got her thinking about sports broadcasting as a potential career path.
As a result, Rives attended the Connecticut School of Broadcasting, a 16-week trade school that she called a “crash course in broadcasting.” Shortly after at 19 years old, she began working as an intern at SiriusXM Mad Dog Sports Radio with The B Team, hosted by Bruce Murray and Bill Pidto.
Working in this role allowed Rives to gain exposure to many parts of radio, including planning shows, interacting directly with on-air talent and editing audio. Up until that point, Rives had not decided whether she wanted to venture into radio or television; however, this experience clarified her stance on the two platforms.
“It just made me see that this is an industry I [could] see myself being in for a very long time, and it solidified that radio was the course I really wanted to go – and not television,” Rives said.
Interning at SiriusXM was not the only thing Rives was doing at the time though. For nearly two years, she worked in a part-time role for DeCheser Media as a legal videographer, driving to courthouses in the northeast to film depositions. The role paid well, but involved a routine point-and-shoot setup that had Rives monitoring video being taken by a camera on a tripod. Shortly after Rives was offered a part-time role at SiriusXM, her boss at DeCheser Media offered her a full-time job doing legal videography in an effort to retain her services, coercing her into making a decision that shaped the future of her career.
“When you’re interning at SiriusXM at the same time and you see what your life could be and the path you could go down in sports radio versus a kind of very sterile, non-creative field like point-and-shoot court depositions,” Rives explained, “I think if anything it taught me a lot and what I didn’t want long-term for my career.”
Once Rives began working part-time at SiriusXM, her goal was to get her foot into the door inside a live studio running a board any way she could. Declining a potential opportunity to expand her skillset and grow was simply not an option for her. In maintaining this attitude, Rives was afforded the chance to work with the show Fight Club on SiriusXM as a board operator, and eventually, as its producer.
“I knew I could get into MMA because I was a big pro wrestling fan growing up, [although] I hadn’t watched in a while,” said Rives. “People fighting and the theatrics of all of it is something I could dig, so I started running the board. [From] the moment I was involved with [a] show that had to do with combat sports, I just knew that if I was going to grow, I needed to absorb myself in it and learn everything I could. I really just fell in love with everything about it and never really looked back from there.”
Since that time, Rives has taken on various endeavors that led her to becoming program director of SiriusXM Fight Nation in 2018, including working as manager of SiriusXM Sports Zone and executive producer of SiriusXM Rush.
Rives has served as an architect for SiriusXM Fight Nation since its launch in 2015, inking former wrestling and MMA stars to contracts to host shows on the satellite radio channel. Whether it is Throwing Down with Renee and Miesha, featuring former UFC champion Miesha Tate and former WWE commentator Renee Paquette; At the Fights with the former commissioner of the New York State Athletic Commission and boxing journalist Randy Gordon and former professional boxer Gerry Cooney; or Busted Open with WWE Hall of Fame members Mark Henry and Bully Ray, along with former ECW wrestler Tommy Dreamer and wrestling commentator Dave LaGreca, Rives has overseen the channel to ensure it is putting out engaging content that appeals to fans of combat sports.
“For me, it’s exciting because I really have an opportunity to bring in high-class athletes that might not have the [same] opportunities as maybe a football player who can kind of go to all these different markets and potentially get a gig talking football,” said Rives. “You’re not going to find many pro wrestling shows like Busted Open…. You don’t get much of that, so it definitely helps you pave your way within a space as well and stand out, and I think that’s a little bit harder with some of the more mainstream sports to be able to do that.”
One aspect of SiriusXM Fight Nation that has been absent for the last two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic is live remote broadcasts. Prior to the pandemic, Rives helped organize the Busted Open 10-year anniversary party. They filled all three floors of a New York City bar to capacity and welcomed various special guests to the broadcast.
Live remotes are slowly starting to return to many sectors of the media industry, and on this upcoming Saturday, April 2, Rives seeks to raise the bar with the two-hour Busted Open live special prior to WrestleMania 38 at Arlington Backyard at Texas Live! adjacent to AT&T Stadium in Arlington, TX. Additionally, full-scale audiovisual production of a comedic roast of show creator and host Dave LaGreca is set to take place and will be available to watch afterward on the SiriusXM mobile app.
“I hired comedy writers, and all of a sudden I went from a sports program director to a comedy production person,” said Rives. “I live to be able to merge what we do in a studio every day with the fans…. We’re really excited; a lot of work has gone into this one.”
Rives enjoys taking on new challenges and recently has moved into the podcasting space by becoming the active director of sports podcasts at SiriusXM. In this role, Rives is leading the effort to grow the selection of sports podcasts across SiriusXM’s programming portfolio.
The broadcasting company recently released Hope Solo Speaks, a podcast featuring two-time Olympian and World Cup-winning goaltender Hope Solo discussing issues important to her, including women’s rights, family and the fight for gender equality. Additionally, she is now working directly with podcasts such as Inside the Green Room with Danny Green, and Let’s Go! with Tom Brady, Larry Fitzgerald and Jim Gray, and is working on developing and releasing more projects in the future.
“I’m really lucky [to have had] an opportunity to develop Fight Nation over the last six-and-a-half years, and now I’m getting a chance to really be on the ground floor of the next effort at SiriusXM to continue to develop our podcast content and programming,” said Rives. “It’s really exciting to take more and kind of push yourself outside of [your] comfort zone. I’ve been a combat sports girl for a long time, so it’s nice to be able to work with some different types of talent beyond just what I’ve been doing.”
With such ferocious growth in the podcasting sector of media, some traditionalists have feared the cessation of terrestrial radio as more consumers opt for on-demand content available whenever, wherever and however they want. Working in both spaces, Rives knows that the two means of aural consumption can indeed coexist, utilizing the strengths of each to improve upon their current products to satisfy the “appetite for audio content.”
“Instead of looking at it as, ‘Okay, this is some other thing that younger people are into,’ it’s just saying, ‘Look at the great content we’re already creating in radio. How do we tap into this, maybe rework it a bit and attract a different audience potentially with this same talent?” said Rives. “I think radio is probably better off now that podcasts were hot than it was a decade ago.”
Aside from the growth of podcasts, Rives is also encouraged by more women seeking careers in sports media and having the ability to genuinely contribute their ideas and opinions to conversations shaping the next stage of media growth. She believes that hearing voices from both of these genders will only benefit media companies by allowing them to consider multiple perspectives and make cognizant decisions that will serve the public interest.
“I think companies are taking it seriously that having the diversity of thought of both men and women involved in an organization just makes it better,” said Rives. “I think it’s less about ticking a box and saying, ‘Hey, we filled a quota, and now we have a woman on staff.’ I feel [like] it’s more about finally appreciating the fact that women really add to the coverage, and that there are women sports fans out there [that] do appreciate seeing other women.”
Rives was recently named as one of Cynopsis Media’s 2021 Top Women in Media, an honor that she hopes will inspire other women to seek careers in sports media, just as she was inspired to do in her youth. She knows that the future is bright for women in sports media and looks to lead by example through the work that she has already done and that she will do as her career progresses.
“It meant a lot, and it continues to mean a lot to me and I think I wear it with a point of pride as I look to continue to inspire other young women to come forth in sports media or any sort of media for that matter, and to be behind the scenes as producers and directors,” Rives said. “It just helps me continue with the goals I’ve always had for myself.”
Rives would not have made it to where she is today without persistence, hard work and the willingness to try new things. From going to the Connecticut School of Broadcasting; to interning at SiriusXM at 19 years old; to turning down a full-time legal videography job; to learning about combat sports on the job; to working in radio and podcasting simultaneously, Rives versatility and poise to succeed and elevate SiriusXM is undeniable. Making the most of your opportunities helps everyone from novices to seasoned professionals adapt and find their place in the media industry – and all of it is possible by saying just one word: “Yes.”
By saying “Yes” to opportunities, you allow yourself to augment your versatility by being open to learning, and you show your superiors that you are ready and willing to adapt, Rives says. If making the most of these opportunities requires working longer hours and expending more effort, so be it; after all, if one wishes to succeed, they will do whatever it takes to attain success.
“If you have big aspirations, you have to put in the time and the effort,” Rives expressed. “This isn’t an easy industry, and there’s perks that come with it [but] there’s also hurdles that you have to overcome. If this is what you want to do, put the time in and it can really work out. I’m kind of proof of that.”
Derek Futterman is a contributing editor and sports media reporter for Barrett Media. Additionally, he has worked in a broad array of roles in multimedia production – including on live game broadcasts and audiovisual platforms – and in digital content development and management. He previously interned for Paramount within Showtime Networks, wrote for the Long Island Herald and served as lead sports producer at NY2C. To get in touch, find him on X @derekfutterman.
