Jon Gruden is a 61-year-old man child who has an endearing love for the sports of football. He was born just a ninety-minute drive northwest of the Pro Football Hall of Fame and has worked nearly every job imaginable in the game from ball boy to head coach. He’s the single-greatest example of a football lifer who has seen the highest of highs, and the lowest of lows.
When Gruden signed with Barstool Sports in November of 2024, I was curious how the digital media giant would utilize Gruden. He had begun his own YouTube channel dedicated to deep analyzation of NFL matchups giving fans a behind the scenes peak into the mind of a Super Bowl winning head coach. Over the last five months, Gruden has been a smash hit for Barstool Sports in engagement, while flooding your social feeds with all sorts of behind-the-scenes content that’s appealing to the NFL fan in us all.
If you haven’t noticed lately, Gruden has found himself being the luckiest kid of football Christmas. Numerous colleges and NFL franchises have been sending Gruden boxes of gear, swag, and team licensed gear for free. The Super Bowl winning head coach has taken unboxing on social media to a whole new level, with the energy and excitement of that 61-year-old man child we all know. This got me thinking, as much as sports radio is a free product to consume, where is the free gear stations are dishing out to their most endearing and devoted listeners?
We can all agree, we all like free. Jon Gruden is no different than anyone else, free is always me. And I like me.
Gruden Is Football’s Most Influential Social Media Influencer
Looking at Gruden’s unboxing videos, the reason why these colleges and professional football programs are sending Gruden the free gear should be the simplest thing to understand in this column. Gruden has an audience, an audience that earns disposable income, and the football programs benefit in free marketing on Gruden’s social platforms with the hope of return on no investment in their marketing. I would think the return on the shipping cost is quite large for many of these brands.
It’s practically an endorsement without paying the endorsement fee, while leveraging a significant influencer to market your product by giving it away for free.
Isn’t that what station gear is meant to do? The station is the influencer, and the product is the gear where listeners will wear the gear to bars, work, and the weekly softball game. People want to represent brands they believe in, and there is nothing more appealing to a listener plus any better opportunity for sports radio brands to market themselves than gear.
This Is Not A T-Shirt, It’s A Billboard
It continues to baffle me how hard it is for sports radio stations to figure out that the best form of advertising your brand is through your listeners. Word of mouth is the single greatest form of marketing for any sports radio brand to have, not only in the content you discuss on air but in the look and attitude of gear. While marketing dollars continue to be other places like paid social media, mailers, and billboard on the side of the highway; too often the simplistic concept of printing shirts has become foreign to sports radio brands.
Some sports radio brands have their own gear, and shops where listeners can purchase it.
94WIP in Philadelphia is a juggernaut of a sports radio brand who has made the merch game a priority for their listeners. Teaming up with BreakingT.com, the sports radio station has a shop tab on their homepage leading listeners to buy station branded gear and team gear with a twist. BreakingT has the same arrangement with 106.7 The Fan in D.C., while 670 The Score in Chicago has a shop arranged with Versatees.
Boston’s 98.5 The Sports Hub has their own custom shop through RadioSwagShop.com, while WFAN in New York City has their own station custom shop through WFANteamstore.com.
While these sports radio brands are doing it right by having a store available to purchase gear, this also leads to other ideas of what you could do with it to save your devoted listener some of their hard-earned income. Work in a specific call to action with a merch drop at one of your top clients, an online hour-long discount sale, or appearances for free gear in exchange for donations for charity.
It’s one thing to have the link live on your website, but it’s another to do something with it that benefits the radio station in marketing and revenue.
Getting Creative With Your Own Branded Gear
Not every sports radio station can pull off what these titans of the industry are doing, but have most even tried? Has it ever come up in a promotions meeting about leveraging some unsold inventory to get some trade for t-shirt swag? Was there ever a concept with partnering with a local print shop for some social marketing integration? Do sports radio brands even bridge the conversation about inserting some added marketing dollars into their budgets?
You also need to remember the most creative minds any sports radio station has are the ones behind the mic. Why not utilize that talent to get creative with your branded gear? What memorable moments from each of your programs resonate leading you to say, ‘put that on a t-shirt and sell it?’
It seems simple on paper; but it seems it’s easier for most to forget. A sports radio station’s marketing is the single most important item in making your station memorable to the listeners you serve. No promo, segment, guest, featured bit, or sound byte can match the connectivity a listener has with their favorite radio station than something that the listener can call their own.
Your listener wants to be a part of your brand, support your talent, and show off to their friends that you’re one of the boys. The more you lean into your listeners to market your brand, the more likely you win.
I bet any of the college football programs of NFL teams would love to see Jon Gruden wearing their swag around the Barstool Sports headquarters, because it markets them to the people who work and consume Barstool content. Same goes for Joe from Madison when he’s at the Milwaukee Brewers game cheering on his favorite team, representing his favorite radio station with thousands of his closest friends.
The Return On Your Merchandising Investment
The smile I’ve watched on Jon Gruden’s face tells the only story any sports radio brand needs to hear when it comes to creating and marketing swag. The sheer excitement of opening a box with whatever sharp object to be found, the joy of opening bag after bag of team swag, and the sell job for the cost of only shipping and handling is the single greatest spend any brand can make with Gruden putting his name alongside your product without him even knowing what he’s doing.
Jon Gruden just loves football, and brands who speak his language while also loving football.
Your listeners love you. Give them something to allow them to show off that love.
While Barstool Sports has changed the game in how traditional sports radio outlets look at crafting content and building the on-demand experience for the listener. Jon Gruden’s unboxing videos should be the single-greatest reminder that marketing through your branded gear is the best form of free promotion.
Put a t-shirt on your audience and see how large you grow.
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John Mamola is Barrett Media’s sports editor and daily sports columnist. He brings over two decades of experience (Chicago, Tampa/St Petersburg) in the broadcast industry with expertise in brand management, sales, promotions, producing, imaging, hosting, talent coaching, talent development, web development, social media strategy and design, video production, creative writing, partnership building, communication/networking with a long track record of growth and success. He is a five-time recognized top 20 program director in a major market via Barrett Medi’s Top 20 series and has been honored internally multiple times as station/brand of the year (Tampa, FL) and employee of the month (Tampa, FL) by iHeartMedia. Connect with John by email at John@BarrettMedia.com.
