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In April 2021, 104.5 The Zone in Nashville announced former University of Tennessee basketball star and Nashville native Ron Slay would join their afternoon show 3HL. Slay would join hosts Brent Dougherty and Dawn Davenport in the afternoons as the third host on a show that has been around, in various iterations, for many years.
The show started out in middays, hence the name which stands for ‘3 Hour Lunch.’ It now airs weekdays in afternoon drive from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. CT. This week I chose the popular show to eavesdrop in on.
Daugherty started on the show in late 2008 and would work with OutKick founder Clay Travis and former Tennessee Titans player Blaine Bishop. Davenport, an Auburn grad who has worked sidelines for ESPN since 2013, joined the show in 2017.
When Slay came on board, Program Director Paul Mason had said it was the listeners who had pushed the station to hire him. “3HL is already a great show, and I look forward to seeing it go to even higher levels,” Mason said at the time. As it turned out, Mason and the station listeners nailed the hire.
When the Fall ratings book came out in April this year, 3HL had a streak of 23 consecutive months being No. 1 in the M25-54 demographic. Additionally, the show went from No. 13 in the BSM Top 20 Mid-Market Afternoon Shows list in 2021 to No. 4 in 2022 and No. 2 in 2023.
In June 2023, the hosts all agreed to multi-year contract extensions to ensure the show will be around for several more years. When the contract extensions were announced, Davenport had said, “It’s not very often you find the chemistry and culture that we are lucky enough to have right now at the Zone and on 3HL. We have the best listeners in the country, and I’m so excited our team will be together for the foreseeable future!”
On the Tuesday Nov. 19 episode, Davenport was fighting a lost voice. Her doctor had recommended voice rest, but she fought through and did what she could to contribute. Dougherty and Slay had some fun with this and suggested she hold up signs to show if she agreed or disagreed with what her colleagues were talking about. Davenport suggested she would make a sign with a middle finger on it and hold that up.
Davenport made it clear she wasn’t feeling sick, her voice was just not working. She pointed out her football assignment this coming weekend might involve her working in snowy conditions in West Virginia.
As I listened to this opening part of the show, I couldn’t help but feel like instead of the proverbial ‘two buddies at a bar’ that this was more like a family, with two brothers and a sister at a bar talking sports, along with any other number of subjects that might come up. While the guys were giving Davenport the business, she was throwing it right back. And, at the same time, there was general concern for her wellbeing as she was asked a few times if she should really be listening to her doctor and shutting her voice down.
There is a lot of interaction with those tuning in, through the phone lines and especially through the chat happening on YouTube. The listeners were having fun at Davenport’s expense as well. One suggested her husband must be happy since she was trying to talk as little as possible.
Davenport got the joke but said her husband, a big Indiana fan, was actually not happy because he wanted to talk about the team’s big game coming up against Ohio State and where they might be ranked by the playoff committee.
Several comments were made referring to the raspiness of Davenport’s voice with many saying it sounded “sexy.” Later the voice conversation would lead down a rabbit hole of comparing her voice to how Demi Moore sounds. This led to talking about actress Kathleen Turner, which led to talking about the movie Romancing the Stone, which led to talk of just how good of an actor Michael Douglas was. That was followed by Daugherty asking his cohorts if they had seen the list of best 1980’s movies where Clue was No. 1. Slay had never seen it but was happy to hear his favorite, Scarface, was No. 2 on the list.
It was indeed a Tuesday with no local teams having played the night before. There would be plenty of sports mixed in over the three hours, but the episode was all over the place, in a good kind of way – it covered a lot of ground.
Daugherty runs point on the show and does a solid job of keeping the audience updated on what’s coming up and deciding when it is time to move on to something else. He has strong opinions and a big voice, and he knows the Nashville sports scene inside and out.
Slay is funny, has a great laugh and gives the perspective of someone who played sports at a very high level. In the family dynamic he is definitely the younger brother, often leaning on Daugherty and Davenport for wisdom. At the same time, he’s not afraid to give his opinion and seems to rarely play things down the middle.
Those that tuned in for football talk got plenty of that over the course of the show. Jim Wyatt, who covers the Titans, came on and tried to make sense of their season as they tried to figure out how the team could come out of an upcoming game at Houston with their third win of the season.
A college football section had some great content as the trio talked about the Texas A&M Aggies – Texas Longhorns matchup which was a week and a half away. They talked about all the various scenarios in the SEC and some of the other larger conferences. This then led Davenport to bring up something she had texted the guys about recently, which was the Texas A&M security feed on X @tamupolice. The account addresses any and all security issues in the stadium. As one can imagine the word ‘intoxicated’ shows up a lot and the issues usually ended with something like, ‘subject released to sober friend’. Should be a fun account to follow the day of that Texas game.
Later, other football subjects addressed would include who the Titans might pick near the top of the draft, where the Titans are as a franchise versus the only team scheduled to pick ahead of them at this point, the Jacksonville Jaguars, and their thoughts on Colorado two-way star Travis Hunter.
Slay said, “You cannot compare this guy to anyone, he is 100 snaps a game.” Daugherty noted former Titans receiver Kevin Dyson had said while he doesn’t think Hunter is a great route runner, he could contribute offensively in the NFL, but thinks ultimately, he will be an elite cornerback.
Davenport added she didn’t think people really understood how hard it is to do what Hunter does. “I see it, I feel it every weekend on the sideline and the fact that he is doing it is special.”
Slay compared Hunter’s elite athleticism to that of an Allen Iverson or a Charlie Ward, who played quarterback and point guard. “We can name all of them, this isn’t a long list,” Slay said.
The topic the hosts kept coming back to however, was an important one in its own right. That was the topic of when the first time someone grouped peanut butter and chocolate together. Initial show research said it happened in the 1920’s, however later a caller said he believed it was earlier in the 1900’s.
This is where we learn Daugherty is a peanut M&Ms guy, Slay likes a Payday and Davenport prefers an Almond Joy. Viewers watching on YouTube, Facebook Live, X and Twitch also learned that Davenport likes sunflower seeds which she was eating throughout the show. That sort of had the direct opposite effect of the ‘Demi Moore voice’.
Daugherty had a great line at one point, summing up the type of day it had become on the show. “This is where we are today,” he said. “Damn Titans are 2-8 so we’re talking about chocolate and peanut butter.”
So it goes, at least it was entertaining conversation, didn’t sound forced, and those wanting hardcore sports talk were served well, too, just not as much as they would be on some other days. There was a really good conversation about teams perhaps not wanting to play in conference championship games in college football. Some sound played of Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin confirmed that some SEC coaches were thinking they’d rather sit the game out and skip the chance to get the bye week, versus potentially losing and getting knocked out.
This led Davenport to say, “The committee better be careful how they treat the conference championship game losers, or they’re going to become [even less important].” Daugherty would add about the college football season so far, “This year is on crack.”
All in all, you probably shouldn’t be allowed to have as much fun as 3HL does and get paid for it. The chemistry is no doubt what makes the show special and the three also have different backgrounds that give the audience several different perspectives.
Whether it was college football or the NFL, how long someone might want to stay in Alaska or which type of slaw you prefer, 3HL entertains and informs. And as it does it will make you laugh along as well and you’ll feel like you’re just another person sitting at that bar, talking with friends about sports or making fun of Davenport for taking out her own mailbox.
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.
