Memphis is a very unique sports town. While home to the Memphis Grizzlies and the University of Memphis, sports fans in the area have several different college teams they root for (mostly in addition to Memphis), several different NFL teams they might root for and the market probably talks more basketball than most other markets in the country. It is home to multiple sports radio stations including Sports 56 WHBQ on the AM side and 92.9 FM ESPN, the station which airs the show I chose to eavesdrop on this week, Jason & John.
Two things most Memphians can agree is that they all care deeply about Memphis, and they also care how people outside of Memphis view the city.
On the Friday August 16th edition of Jason & John, hosts Jason Smith and John Martin hit on some of that almost right away. One of the stories of the day was the national TV schedule for the NBA coming out and the Grizzlies have a total of nine nationally televised games. Many Grizzlies fans had expressed disappointment with that number, despite the team having a 27-55 record a season ago. With that said, expectations are very high for this year’s team as they expect to get back on track to where they were prior to last season when they had back-to-back 50-win seasons.
Martin had the best take about the schedule release as a whole, which was to ask what the big deal was. “41 home games, 41 away games,” he said as he noted there aren’t that many games that really stand out when the schedule first comes out. A handful of games are of note for one reason or another, but he wasn’t buying into the hype of the discussion.
Both Smith and Martin have writing backgrounds. Martin is a college sports columnist for the Daily Memphian who previously spent time at The Commercial Appeal covering recruiting. Smith is the son of Memphis broadcasting legend Les Smith who retired several years ago after more than three decades in various capacities on Memphis television as well as print. Jason Smith grew up following his dad to various Memphis sporting events and spent 13 years at The Commercial Appeal, starting out covering high school sports and then advancing to one of the most coveted positions in Memphis media – beat writer for the Memphis Tigers basketball team.
The two have been together on the radio for the last eight years and have been a very successful duo on a station that has been dominant since it started on the FM signal in 2009. The station has been nominated multiple times for a Marconi Award as Sports Station of the Year.
A few things stand out when the show first comes on. One is the chemistry Smith and Martin share, which also includes the ‘third voice’ on the show, station Brand & Operations Manager and show Executive Producer Brad Carson. Another thing that stands out is Smith’s voice. If you’ve never heard it before you may wonder when Barry White started to do sports talk radio. Silky smooth with a deep base.
It doesn’t take long to realize both hosts are very smart, have a lot of passion and really think about the subjects and topics they are talking about. Like sportswriters. And it isn’t limited to sports, music is a frequent topic, and as mentioned before, Memphis, the city and its successes and failures are discussed as well.
This was evident again when Bluff City Media’s Anthony Sain came on as a guest. While there mainly to promote a local wrestling promotion, Sain gave takes on some of the main topics. Another Grizzlies topic that has come up recently, in addition to the schedule, was that they were having part of their training camp in Nashville. In somewhat standard Memphis sports fan fashion, this has led to some saying this must be a part of the team’s eventual plan to move out of Memphis for the larger city.
Sain said, “We are in a ‘woe is me’ city and we entertain a lot of ‘woe is me’ conversation.” That sums it up pretty well. Sain also made another good point later when he gave his thoughts on the number of national TV games for the Grizzlies. “Get in the playoffs, all the games are on national TV,” he said.
This particular week, the city is at the center of the golf world as it hosts the FedEx St. Jude Classic at TPC Southwind, which awards a $3.6 million check to its winner. The weather has stolen a lot of the headlines thus far as there was an excessive heat warning with a heat index of 112. The world’s best golfer, Scottie Scheffler, however, was climbing the leaderboard and at one point Carson noted how good it would sound to have “Scottie Scheffler win Memphis.”
While the show had a regular feature, ‘The Rundown,’ it wasn’t overrun with segments. There were multiple guests on the show, including the Memphis women’s soccer coach who had just picked up win No. 300. Additionally, Gabe Kuhn, former standout lineman at Memphis who hosts the afternoon show for the station, popped on to talk about Memphis football and construction happening at their home field, the Liberty Bowl.
I have often noted through social media posts how good of a job the station does at making their own hosts the experts on other shows to talk about a particular topic. They of course have other people that will come on to analyze something like University of Memphis football, but when you have someone like Kuhn already on staff, it makes a lot of sense to use him as often as possible when other shows want to talk college football.
Kuhn is very good on the air. He was excellent on this guest hit as he showed his wealth of knowledge of the Tigers’ football team, the AAC conference and the rest of the top college football teams in the country. Expectations are extremely high for this year’s team. “AAC Championship or bust,” Smith said at one point.
Kuhn pointed out that ultimately it may come down to how the Memphis football team handles the pressure and you really don’t know about that until it happens. The talent is there, but the rest will have to play out.
The three hosts also talked about the demolition of the press box and section of The Liberty Bowl which will make this year tough to navigate around. The capacity will be down, the traffic will be a problem and visually it will not look good. The hosts noted, however, that “there’s a price to progress.” Kuhn later added, “They need this stadium done if they ever want to get where they want to go as an athletic department in general.”
Again, smart, solid sports conversation that always seem to come back to how the city can either come together, grow or both with sports as the catalyst.
No matter if it was one of the main subjects of the day or whether they were talking about if Serena or Venus was better looking, how the rookie NFL quarterbacks have looked in training camp, wagering on preseason games (John, seriously?) or how the NBA can expand upon the In Season Tournament to include different locations and new rules, Jason & John is a good listen that makes you think and keeps you entertained.
Dave Greene is the Chief Media Officer for Barrett Media. His background includes over 25 years in media and content creation. A former sports talk host and play-by-play broadcaster, Dave transitioned to station and sales management, co-founded and created a monthly sports publication and led an ownership group as the operating partner. He has managed stations and sales teams for Townsquare Media, Cumulus Media and Audacy. Upon leaving broadcast media he co-founded Podcast Heat, a sports and entertainment podcasting network specializing in pro wrestling nostalgia. To interact, find him on Twitter @mr_podcasting. You can also reach him by email at Dave@BarrettMedia.com.
