My cousin and I are super close even though we don’t always speak the same language. He is a lifelong New Yorker now living in the New Jersey suburbs, is a religious guy, and follows politics for fun. I am a Southerner through and through, don’t go to church, and have learned I cannot follow politics for fun because that is no fun for anyone. The only place where my bubble and his overlap is the NBA.
I thought about this when we spoke this weekend and he asked me what I thought of the Republican presidential debate. I honestly did not know one had happened. I knew that Ron DeSantis had some weird smile moment that went viral, but he has had so many of those moments, that I did not consider that the smile currently under scrutiny was something that a lot of people witnessed in real-time.
It also dawned on me that he has no opinion about “Coming to Your City” no longer being the theme song to College GameDay, which admittedly, is kind of all I want to talk about right now. For sixteen years I have hated that song and it is finally out of my life. To him? It means nothing.
We have all heard a lot about living in our own bubble in recent years. When you curate your various social media profiles to fit your interests and points of view, you can get a skewed perspective of how much issues and stories really matter to the average person.
So what does that mean to sports radio? We know that being active and interesting on social media is important to every employer, but what are the best practices? How do you make the payoff worth the time and effort that go into creating content that isn’t even guaranteed to be seen by a large percentage of the people who have chosen to follow you, let alone win over new fans and followers?
The best way to learn how talents in the sports radio world are trying to penetrate the bubble someone not listening to them has built is to ask them. It also is worth finding out how they think about their own bubble and the best ways to expand it.
For Landry Locker, he isn’t just thinking about what it means to penetrate that bubble on social media. Not alienating casual sports fans is a major goal for him on the air too.
“If you aren’t giving conscious consideration to balancing the casual or non-sports fan with your content then you aren’t doing your job,” the host of In the Loop on Houston’s Sports Radio 610 host says. “One of my early mentors always told me, ‘Don’t do a show for the press box.’ I think that’s good advice and balancing out things is always important. You want to have fun and be a full-service program.”
Emmett Golden of ESPN Cleveland echoes that sentiment. He doesn’t just want listeners to think of him as an informed and trustworthy source of Browns commentary. He wants them to relate to him as a person.
“I do my best to have something every day that’s a normal real-life experience that I can talk about to really connect with my audience,” he says. “A lot of times I don’t tell my co-hosts so that I can get a genuine reaction from them.”
When you look at the ratings in Nashville, it is clear that more than just sports fans are tuning into 3HL on 104.5 The Zone. Co-host Dawn Davenport says it is because she and her co-hosts have found a way to serve the people looking for x-and-o sports talk just as well as someone who can’t even name a player on the Nashville Predators’ roster. But creating that kind of content and expanding what bubbles it reaches is not an exact science.
“It’s all about BALANCE,” she says. “Sometimes we miss the mark. Sometimes we nail it. It’s different every day.”
As for reaching a new audience, Locker and Davenport agree that X (formerly Twitter) is the most effective place to do it. Davenport admits that streaming video has been a big help too.
That makes a lot of sense. As I have written before, video apps are the new radio dial. Whether it is TikTok, Twitch, Instagram, or YouTube, your content doesn’t have to be a 100% match with the user’s interest to find its way into their algorithm. Once it does, the experience is no different from scanning a radio dial. The viewer can bounce from one video to another to find something they like.
Social media can be a combative place. He has seen posts from himself or his station that are clearly about sports spark political fights. That is kind of the give and take of social media. You can post your content, but your audience has the ability to control the conversation about it.
Golden says that he isn’t worried about that limiting his reach though. Social media isn’t new after all.
“I think a lot of people look for arguments on social media,” he said. “The political stuff can get messy but most people that use social media kind of understand that and I think they just keep scrolling or mute words that they don’t want to see so they stay away from those conversations.”
While Locker is an X believer, he knows that constant promotion there can turn some people off. If the audience starts to consider your timeline more spam than content, you aren’t penetrating new bubbles. You’re being kicked out of the bubbles you used to be a part of.
That is why he has started experimenting. It isn’t just with new content, but also with new platforms. Like Davenport’s show, Locker has seen the benefits of embracing video. He has also seen the benefit of creating an exclusive community.
“We have a listener private Facebook page that generates a lot of discussion with a couple thousand members. I also started a Texans YouTube channel less than a year ago that has reached a whole new audience and done well in a short time, with well over 1 million views and about 5.5K subscribers. From the Facebook and YouTube demo, you can cover a lot of ground beyond the traditional radio demo.”
It’s easy to create a bubble on social media. It is much harder to break into one someone else has created for him or herself. The best you can do is go new places and try new things. Show the people who think you aren’t for them that there is more to you than they may think.
Davenport says it well. There is no need to overthink it. Create content that connects and put it where people can find it whether they are seeking it out or not.
“Ultimately, our goal is simply to entertain, every hour, every day.”
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.
