This industry guest column is from Josh Lewin. Lewin is an accomplished radio and television sports play-by-play broadcaster for many outlets including the NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB. Currently, he is the voice of UCLA Athletics for JMI Sports and iHeart-Los Angeles. He can be reached through his website, JoshLewinProductions.com
“I tell you what they should do; they should combine the two jobs of cop and garbage man. I see cops walking around with nothing to do… grab a broom! Start sweeping!” – Jerry Seinfeld
For those of you who’ve heard my play-by-play broadcasts, you’ll know I never miss a chance to use an antiquated Seinfeld reference. For those who haven’t, nice to meet you. We are now nearly thirty years since Jerry, George, the Soup Nazi and the rest were in their prime, which is a telling place to begin what’s essentially a position paper.
The position: “The traditional play-by-play person had better pick up a broom.” So to speak.
I started out as a baseball and hockey play-by-play guy a million years ago (well actually, the very season the Seinfeld pilot aired, 1991.) Back then a play-by-play guy did… play-by-play. Hours and hours were spent going to libraries (remember them?). Reading newspapers (remember those?). Having long talks with players and coaches (which is still the best way to get good information after all this time; sorry, whatever we’re now calling Twitter.) Don’t get me wrong: The fundamentals will never change. A good play-by-play man or woman will carbo-load with as much information as possible in an effort to inform, educate and entertain.
However, since most prep work is now done easily on-line, and since players are largely inaccessible due to the changing landscape of public relations staffs, there are now many more available hours in our workdays. (Quick aside on media relations staffs, or as they used to be called at colleges, “sports information directors.” Have you noticed the shift from offense to defense in that space?
Back in the era of Kramer and Elaine, these folks were friendly and proactive. They pitched us ideas and asked what they could do to help us tell their stories better. Now – as I shake my fist at a passing cloud – the job has become to seal us off, redirect us or ask, “why would you need to know that?” A play-by-player’s research has become largely DIY. Many of these folks dismissively shrug and remind us “it’s all available online.”
That’s true — albeit often behind a paywall — but that’s another column some other day.
Point is, we are now doing more research on our own, and we are doing it quickly and efficiently. If I announce two UCLA basketball games per week, I’m at maybe 12 hours of research and five hours of actual announcing. That’s a 17-hour workweek. So, before the robots come for our phony baloney jobs, I’m going to suggest we find a way to be productive with the other 23 hours before those in charge figure out the math. Beat ‘em to the punch.
If I was an employer, I would be keenly aware that my team is in a content arms race that escalates every week. I would ask “how can I strengthen the connective tissue between my franchise and my fan base? How can I grow my brand? How can I control my narrative and tell our story so twenty other random podcasters aren’t stealing all the oxygen from the room?”
If I was said employer, I would ultimately land on this thought: “Wait. Isn’t the play-by-play person my hired ambassador in the first place? The tour guide of my factory? The docent of my museum? And isn’t he or she connected to and friendly with other announcers, beat writers, players, and coaches? If indeed that’s the case (as it certainly should be), why not ask this person to spend those other workweek hours churning out content that moves the needle with my customers?”
My play-by-play person could turn out the following “value-adds” gathered from the cutting room floor of all that precious research done before each game. A post-game wrap-up podcast. A pre-game preview podcast. A “Where Are They Now” interview with a former player. A longform essay about a special season from the past. A recorded Zoom interview with a prospect at triple-A or in the G League. It’s no different than the modern sports talk host being asked to multi-task and not just do a four-hour show.
That ask is coming, y’all. If it isn’t, that team or university is passing up a golden opportunity to hand a broom to the cop-on-the-beat. On average, baseball play-by-play is on the air for a team 17 hours per week in-season. Hockey for 8 hours per week. Basketball for 8 hours. Football for 3 hours. Do you know how many hours are in an actual week? 176. (I looked it up on the aforementioned interwebs.) As fans continue to clamor for more food at the all-you-can-eat content buffet, if I’m a marketing/broadcast director for one of these teams, I’m trying to keep up with the demand. That’s just good business.
So, on the play-by-play side, I invite you to pull the rest of this thread to its logical conclusion. Sure, this marketing VP could hire a couple of people to help him/her build out those podcast and YouTube platforms that have become so essential. But that would add to the company head count and cost them money. And whomever these newcomers are, they wouldn’t be as connected (nor as talented) as you are. The solution at which they’ll arrive to maximize value and performance is to hand you that broom and have you sweep in your spare time. So, we’d do well to prepare our janitor’s closet accordingly. We are now more useful being Jomboy than Jim Nantz.
Last year, I decided to get ahead of the game on this. I created a company, Josh Lewin Productions, and hung out a shingle that says “sure, I can do play-by-play, but I can also produce, perform, and edit podcasts and documentaries, tip to tail. I can write for the website, host Twitch and YouTube meetups, and give fans multiple reasons to join the content campfire we’ve created.”
The days of a play-by-play person doing just play-by-play are ending, guys. As Kramer said in the ill-fated Seinfeld finale, “yeah, there’s something in the air today.”
The good news is that the result of this industry pivot may end up being a win/win. Remember that lack of player access I whined about a few paragraphs ago? If I’m the Clippers, I want my podcast/blogger/embedded journalist to have a direct line to these guys so they can spread the sugar to the fans. I want them to buy a Terance Mann jersey, and the best way to their wallets is to make them fall in love with Terance Mann. Suddenly, that in-depth interview for which the play-by-play guy ‘s been longing? Why, Dorothy, it’s been there all along.
I say let’s embrace the change. Learn how to tell stories across multiple platforms besides pure play-by-play, and make ourselves indispensable; safe from the army of content creators and A.I. bots gathered on the horizon. We are in a content economy. The way content is getting consumed these days, the more clubs we can have in our golf bag, the better.
If we can deliver quality “alt” value to the leagues, teams, or schools for which work, we will all live happily ever after.
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“Do you know how many hours are in an actual week? 176. ”
The Interwebs lied to you, Josh. There are 168 hours in a week. Source: math. 24 x 7 = 168.