There are thousands of football fans who are hoping to immerse themselves amid the frozen tundra at the NFL Draft this week in Green Bay, Wis., possessing an insatiable yearning for competition on the gridiron. Steve Czaban is looking forward to the event, as the smallest market in the National Football League will be hosting the marquee league event of the offseason as 32 franchises seek to shape their futures with a new generation of stars entering the domain.
Czaban hosts morning drive programming on 97.3 The Game in Milwaukee, which is located approximately two hours away from Green Bay. As the NFL Draft commences later this week, personalities from the sports talk radio station will be staying together in a rented house and have a prominent presence at the three-day event itself. The conversations surrounding the selection strategy and overall event have proliferated in recent weeks on 97.3 The Game, and there is excitement and anticipation for the tentpole occurrence to take place.
“It’s the biggest event that Green Bay will host regarding the NFL ever because they know they’re not going to get a Super Bowl for obvious reasons, so this is going to be huge and I think the turnout’s going to be spectacular,” Czaban said. “I think people are going to come from all over to be there at the event.”
The football universe will soon be situated at Lambeau Field, which is considered hallowed ground for the sport and the second-oldest stadium in the league. Top college athletes such as Cam Ward, Abdul Carter and Travis Hunter are widely reputed to be chosen early in the proceedings, and Czaban and his colleagues will be on hand to document all of the action and conversations for listeners.
“The NFL is such a monster,” Czaban said. “It’s like, ‘Who would have ever thought the Draft would be an asset that they shop around city to city, and they build these massive campuses and stages for outdoor events?’ We’re still so far away from actual football, but they’re going to get a huge crowd, and so yeah, there’s a lot of buzz for it for sure.”
Embracing the Partnership With the Packers
Over the last three seasons, 97.3 The Game has been the Milwaukee flagship radio station for Packers football. Garnering the distinction after the Packers concluded a 93-year run with 620 WTMJ, Czaban has recognized how the franchise does not regulate what is said by hosts on the airwaves. Rather than exercising putative authority or engendering a chilling effect regarding content, he feels collaborating with the organization has been helpful as the station appeals to fans throughout the region and beyond.
“They have been working with us directly as the station for the lead-up to the Draft, taking us to New Orleans [for] the Super Bowl where they had a beautiful set that looked like the facade of Lambeau Field,” Czaban said, “and we’re going to be there front and center at the Draft itself for all three days.”
Operating in a marketplace replete with professional and collegiate sports teams, Czaban seeks to discern the topics towards which the audience has a vested interest in order to safeguard against his program rendering itself irrelevant and obsolete. There are instances where he hears feedback from consumers at bars and on golf courses, and he always remains alert and receptive to resonate with the listening public. Yet the show rarely takes calls and instead focuses its remit of listener engagement on texts, encapsulating the verve and avidity of fans through this communication.
“I think having a text line is a very efficient weapon for a show because you’re getting constant feedback, and then you can just pick and choose what texts you want to get on the air,” Czaban said. “There is still value in having the voice of a listener on air, but you really have to coach them into, ‘Okay, when we say you’re on the air, get right to your point, don’t belabor it, and get it in there,’ and some callers are better than others at doing it, but it usually takes a fair bit of coaching.”
Czaban tries to position his show to align with that of an FM radio morning show, presenting a conversational and lighthearted look to the airwaves with co-host Brian Butch. Challenging himself to answer why things are taking place, he seeks to discover the genuine stories surrounding the games and going beyond superficial headlines. Although rising early can be challenging as games end with the moon near its apex, Czaban values the timeslot and ability to disseminate his thoughts.
“I like to say you’ve got the freshest powder on the ski slopes every day, so the news that happens, the games that happen, the highlights that happen, you’re the first ones to get out there and have your opinion on it,” Czaban explained. “Afternoon drive, a lot of the times because things move so fast, you feel like, ‘Okay, everyone’s already been over this all day long,’ because you’ve been listening to sports radio probably either your station or someone else all day long.”
Playing the Face of The Game for Milwaukee
Czaban works under the direction of market manager Jeff Tyler and program director Tim Scott, bonafide professionals who have facilitated the sustained presence and growth of the station. Scott offers creative ideas surrounding the programming aspects of the station, Czaban explained, and he is also someone who is not afraid to change his mind. In possessing on-air experience, he knows the grind associated with hosting, including devising ideas to create a strong program that amasses a loyal audience.
“Ratings are obviously a big part of it, and you can’t control them, although they’re the scoreboard that’s used to sort of judge how you’re doing,” Czaban said. “But as the station, the only real scoreboard is revenue, and so you have to make up good ratings with good revenue and sponsorships and everything else, and that’s where you have to have a sales team that works well with you on the programming side to convert what I call the yards between the 20-yard lines, which is ratings, into touchdowns, which is sales inside the 20.”
Despite being considered a mid-market metropolis, Milwaukee has three terrestrial FM radio stations broadcasting in the sports talk format owned by different media conglomerates. iHeartMedia flipped the 97.3 frequency to sports talk five days after the Thanksgiving holiday in 2018, but three weeks earlier, Good Karma Brands had launched ESPN Milwaukee upon its acquisition of the 620 AM and 94.5 FM frequencies from the E.W. Scripps Company. This past autumn, Audacy officially relaunched The Fan simulcast on 105.7 FM and added to the competition on the dial.
“To be really successful, you got to wrap in casual sports fans, and I think one of the biggest things that we do in the business, those of us on this side of the microphones, is we overestimate just how into sports everyone is and how much they follow and they are aware of,” Czaban said. “Most guys, they like sports, they’ll watch a game or two, but they got a family, they got a job, they got things they got to do, they got other hobbies – they hunt, they fish, they go to concerts – so don’t overestimate how much they might know because you’re in the business.”
Czaban considers sports in Wisconsin to be an interesting collage that spans across different towns and cities, remarking how the Packers and Brewers tend to have statewide appeal. Interest in the Bucks, he averred, tends to occur within the city itself, while the Badgers football team has more gravity in nearby Madison. Czaban became more acclimated with the sports nuances in the area over a 24-year stretch discussing sports within the popular Bob and Brian morning talk radio show on 102.9 The Hog.
“It was supposed to be a 15-minute segment, it turned into 45 minutes by the time I was done, and we just had a great time, and those guys really shaped and influenced my style because they are FM DJs, and so therefore they knew enough about sports,” Czaban said, “but they weren’t obsessive sports fans, sports AM, sports radio, ‘Who’s the best left-hander in the bullpen for the Mets?’-kind of sports fans, so they helped influence me in that way, and it was great.”
From the Nation’s Capital to the Nation’s Dairyland
Czaban had been hosting at The Team 980 for 19 years, and he continued with the station despite joining 97.3 The Game in May 2019. The chance to host a sports talk radio program in the market was an opportunity he could not pass up, and he balanced ventures in both locales for 19 months before departing the Washington, D.C. station. While Czaban knew that assisting with the growth of 97.3 The Game would be akin to joining an expansion team, he valued being in charge of his own show and took on the job without forsaking his other work.
“It wasn’t so much of a challenge as it was just, it was refreshing to be able to kind of put on a different hat and know what each market was more interested in the other obviously,” Czaban said. “All local radio is the local fans want to know about their teams, and they don’t mind dabbling in the national stuff if it’s a big enough story, but they don’t really care other than their own team, so I was able to talk D.C. sports and Milwaukee/Wisconsin sports simultaneously.”
Towards the end of the year, iHeartMedia made considerable layoffs to its workforce that affected various formats in markets around the country. John Kuhn, a former Packers fullback who had been hosting middays with Billy Schmid and Armen Saryan, was laid off after more than four years with the outlet. Despite the job cuts, Czaban remains confident in the future of the outlet and the dedication to sports talk radio demonstrated by the company, underscoring the prompt nature of the medium.
“Even podcasts that record as close as they can to the end of the week, you’re still getting information that is not as immediate and visceral,” Czaban said. “So in that regard, iHeart has really stepped up, and they were once really just the music, primarily the music conglomerate in the radio business, but they have quietly acquired quite a few markets’ NFL rights because they understand actually that the NFL drives the bus and that sports talk radio isn’t going anywhere, and it’s the one thing that cannot be replaced by podcasts and other stuff like that.”
As the start of the NFL Draft approaches, Czaban is excited by the augmented levels of access to teams and discovering the inner workings of specific franchises. Working with good colleagues and making a living talking about sports is an imprimatur he does not take for granted, and he seeks to justify the investment from the company and the audience through an unrelenting dedication to the craft. With the Packers looking to make a deep playoff run, Czaban hopes that general manager Brian Gutekunst selects a wide receiver in the NFL Draft, but regardless what transpires, he is looking forward to the distinguished offseason event and continuing to grow the program.
“We’re right on the verge of being No. 1 in the mornings, and I would love to be able to plant that flag, and I think we’re close and I think that’s attainable the next couple of years,” Czaban said. “I would just love to be able to be on the air doing sports radio for a Super Bowl championship.”
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Derek Futterman is a former associate editor and sports media reporter for Barrett Media. He previously interned for Paramount within Showtime Networks, wrote for the Long Island Herald and served as lead sports producer at NY2C. Find him on X @derekfutterman.
