The BSM Summit will be here before you know it. In less than a month, we will all be in Los Angeles discussing what is and isn’t working for our industry and what we can do better. Sam Pines is already there and thinking about these very topics every day.
Pines is the Senior Vice President of ESPN 710 LA. After spending seventeen years in Cleveland, Good Karma Brands sent him to California when the company took over operations in Los Angeles. Maybe it has taken some getting used to, but who wouldn’t rather spend winters with sunshine and days that top out in the 60-and-70-somethings as opposed to freezing rain and negative temperatures?
One thing he hopes visitors to the city won’t do is buy into the stereotype of local sports fans. LA is very worthy of hosting a conference featuring some of the most influential minds and biggest names in sports media.
“The sports fandom is as passionate, I will say, as anywhere I’ve seen, for teams,” Pines says. “If you saw the LAFC final, it was an incredibly passionate fanbase. If you look at LeBron’s record-breaking game, it’s an incredibly passionate fanbase. Even if you’re at a game where the Lakers win or lose by ten, it’s still a really passionate fan base. We see that with all the teams that that we work with.”
Sam will be on an executive panel at the BSM Summit alongside Don Martin, and Stacey Kauffman. Bonneville’s Scott Sutherland will moderate the session titled “Business Strategy For Economic Uncertainty“. The group will address some of the key issues facing the media industry while also reflecting on some of the biggest success stories.
I asked him what it is he hopes to cover while on stage.
“I think getting, for sports radio, more of a diversity of thought. I think the panel, it sounds like it’s going to look way too much like me. I think that is our one of our challenges as we go into the future.”
Diversity has been a common subject at past BSM Summits. How sports radio attracts more black and brown faces is a problem. Many have stood on stage and said they want to help solve the problem, yet we keep having the same conversation year after year.
ESPN 710 LA can point to Amanda Brown as evidence that it is worth investing in and elevating diverse points of view. She has been with the station for twelve years and is now the program director.
She has been shouted out from the stage at multiple BSM Summits in past years as speakers acknowledge the rarity of a woman being given the chance to program a sports radio station, let alone a station in a top 2 market.
The acknowledgment has been great, but we are back in LA in 2023. Sam Pines is excited that this year, Amanda Brown gets to be on stage and share her opinions with the crowd.
“I think it’s great, and that goes to the diversity of thought when we look at what sports radio has been in the past. To continue to evolve as sports and sports media have is awesome. So to see someone like Amanda up there, it’s long overdue.”
People choose to attend the BSM Summit for all kinds of reasons, and it is people at every level of the sports media business. Leaders of networks and media companies will be there. Some of the biggest stars in our industry will be there. Students will be there. A wide variety of perspectives and opinions will be available to anyone that uses the time between sessions to network.
Pines wants to hear as many as he can. Sure, executives want to talk to other executives and compare notes on how to solve common problems, but there is value in talking to the people that either haven’t yet reached your level or are on a different path in the business completely. Those are the people Pines is most interested in hearing speak, whether on stage or one-on-one.
“I prefer the way content creators think. It is amazing to me,” he says. “So whether you’re putting together 5 minutes of social or 4 hours of filling in dead air and making hundreds of thousands of people interested in what you ate for dinner. To me, how they story gets told is awesome. But I want to know how can we, as executives, make their life easier and make it better to make that content and more enjoyable because it can be a grind for them. I’ve seen that and want to know how to combat it.”
The BSM Summit will be held on March 21 and 22 at Los Angeles’s Galen Center on the campus of USC. Tickets and hotel packages are on sale now.
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.
