In most markets, when you listen to sports talk radio, you want to hear the hosts cover a plethora of topics and you want all of the updates on the local teams. In Birmingham, on JOX 94.5 it is pretty much the opposite. The audience wants as much college football talk as you can possibly give them and more. And that is exactly what they get each morning with Greg McElroy and Cole Cubelic, hosts of McElroy & Cubelic, the top Mid Market Morning Show for the third year in a row on the BSM Top 20.
If college football is your topic du jour, McElroy and Cubelic are who you want hosting the show. They deliver what the audience wants on a daily basis and not only bring the facts, but the opinions come from two people who played college football at its highest level in the SEC, with McElroy having played at Alabama and Cubelic having played at Auburn.
After the announcement was made this morning, I was able to catch up with the two of them over the phone.
Dave Greene: Cole, I will start with you, congratulations first of all, it must be nice to be recognized in this way.
Cole Cubelic: Greg and I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about or talking about where we rank or what people really think of us. We just try to go out and do the best show we can every day. And with our other responsibilities, I think it takes away from the time to even really sit around and try to contemplate it.
So, especially from Barrett Sports Media, who we know, you’re talking about PDs, you’re talking about people who work in the industry, people who have been behind microphones before, who have sold before, who have run stations before. I think we all know listeners are a major part of why we have success. But for your peers to recognize what you’re doing; it always is pretty cool to sit back and have that happen.
DG: Greg, we get some feedback sometimes from bosses and such. But, especially in this era where a lot of the feedback comes through social media, and it can all be so negative as Cole said, it’s nice to see the peers recognize you.
Greg McElroy: It’s funny. I gave up social media last year. Just like a mental health break. So, I know exactly what you mean. It’s hard to find positivity. And it’s hard enough to kind of like live in this world where everyone’s an expert on what we’re talking about. And that’s what I love about it. Because there is so much variety with the perspectives and the things that we’re talking about.
And look, college sports, people are very, very passionate about the subject matter that we’re discussing. And they take it deeply personal if you have a constructive comment that they don’t align with. And I think that’s great. And that’s the beauty of our show. We call balls and strikes. And we don’t usually fall victim to the story of the week. We just try to call it how we see it. And I think we try to do it with a sliver of positivity, which is sometimes hard to find. And I think people have kind of gravitated towards that because the world is so dang negative when it comes to college sports.
DG: Cole, a huge part of all of it is chemistry. And the two of you seem to have great chemistry. Talk about that chemistry between the two of you.
CC: We knew pretty early on. We had the advantage of working in some different avenues before we actually started the show. So, we had co-hosted a few shows before on different platforms. We did the first Finebaum Film Room together. We called a football game together where Greg was in the booth, and I was on the sideline. I think playing at Auburn, playing at Alabama, you have a lot of similar experiences. We played against a lot of the same coordinators. We played in the same venues. So, we know the most important rivalry in college football to us very well.
And then I think, too, even though our brains think very much alike from a football perspective, Greg’s younger than me. And so pop culture or whatever it is, he feels a little bit different about some things. His playing experience was a little bit different than mine based on where college football was. So, I think all those things kind of help us be just different enough. There are certain points in time when I think there’s a little bit of group think between the two of us. We have to kind of force ourselves to speak differently about different things because we do see things very similar a lot of the time.
But that’s what helps our continuity as well. That’s what’s gotten us to where we can poke and prod one another. We can give each other a hard time. We can just laugh about it. We’re not going to hurt each other’s feelings, which personally has been a problem for me in other shows that I’ve done before. And I don’t have to worry about that with Greg.
GM: There was a point a handful of years ago where I was kind of debating if I wanted to keep doing radio. We were having young kids and kind of at the point where it’s like, I don’t know. That 20-hour, 30-hours that you’re committing just to being on the air every week was being challenged. And when the opportunity to work with Cole was presented, it was like, yeah, I’m doing it. I get to work with someone that I really admire and respect. That’s part of what makes, working at JOX so appealing and working with Cole every day so appealing.
He sees the game totally different from me. And even before we did shows together, I would go to Cole’s house, and we would watch UFC fights or boxing matches. We’d go hang out. We were really friends before we were co-hosts. And I think that kind of comes through on the air, and I think that people can kind of align with that. But what I like most about working with Cole is, I can show up and actually really learn something on the job.
I feel like I’m a pretty good expert when it comes to college football, but I’m not an expert with the way Cole sees the game. I think there’s a lot of value to that. And it’s made me better on television. I think it’s helped me have a different perspective. And I think my perspective from the quarterback position has been helpful for Cole and his growth as a broadcaster.
DG: One more question for both of you, what are your goals for the show in 2025?
CC: I think it’s always just to find different ways to have conversations. We’re always trying to challenge ourselves, whether it’s weekly segments, whether it’s daily segments, to try to do things that are going to entertain people in different ways, but talk about the topics that we love. You know, expanding our horizons on maybe things that we need to be talking about, should be talking about in different ways.
JOX TV was a massive goal last year and we got that going, so we’re live on YouTube each and every day. Our goals are to just have more ways for people to be able to tune in, watch us, listen to us on a daily basis, and just challenge ourselves to do things that are more difficult. And that’s not something that’s unfamiliar to Greg or myself.
GM: We live in Birmingham. We’re going to broadcast from the center of the Southeastern Conference. That’s our bread and butter. I know what I’m working on personally is the amount of knowledge that we pick up from just doing the show, it’s so incredibly valuable. And just covering the SEC teams and knowing them like the back of our hand is so incredibly valuable.
But what I love most is that we’re a Birmingham show, but we have appeal all throughout the Southeast, all throughout the country because of the app and because of streaming and how accessible local radio has become. My goal is to not just grow here in the state of Alabama, which is our home, but to grow all over the country and to keep having people listen in and take a peek. I you love college sports and if you want to talk college sports year-round, like, there’s not a lot of places to do that.
So, growth in the southeast is amazing. We look forward to continuing to do that, but I want to grow nationally too now as we continue to try to become a home for college sports fans.
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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.
