When Amber Wilson discovered that she was due to have a child in September, she recognized that the upcoming football season would be different from previous years. Even though Wilson valued the time she spent on maternity leave with her newborn child and family, she remained keenly aware of occurrences in the world of sports. In fact, she would frequently listen to ESPN across various platforms and utilized a home sports theater to watch multiple football games simultaneously.
The difficulty associated with this maternity leave, however, was amplified in that she could not take part in episodes of College Football Tailgate, the road show launched by ESPN Radio this season. Wilson had received the assignment to work with her former on-air partner Jonathan Zaslow, but she was unable to fulfill most of the schedule and needed to focus on her family.
After the first week of the show, which aired from her alma mater of the University of Florida, Wilson did not make her return until the SEC Championship Game in Atlanta, Ga. Over the course of several weeks, she had been clamoring to return from her maternity leave and found herself giving sports opinions into a proverbial abyss. Even though she ended up returning to the ESPN airwaves early, it was hard not to have the yearning to participate in the regular-season slate.
“They were going to places that I’ve always wanted to go that I’ve never gotten to go to, places like South Bend, Ind., and so I’m watching them have all the fun without me and I’m missing it,” Wilson explained. “And absolutely, I couldn’t kind of wait to get back out there, even though I was, of course, loving that time with my newborn son, and there was no means that I would have been prepared to go back out there or leave the baby by any means, but I was having some FOMO even though I was in baby bliss.”
In addition to not traveling with the show, Wilson was off the air on her evening weekday program with Ian Fitzsimmons just over a year after its launch as part of the new ESPN Radio lineup. The duo has built rapport and utilized connections within the sports media ecosystem as the offering has continued to proliferate in scope while establishing a distinctive, resonant sound.
“In radio, you kind of have to know everything about anything, and it’s one of the things that I like about radio,” Wilson said. “Radio is incredibly difficult though, and it’s certainly not something everybody can do. If you can do sports radio, you can do anything.”
In working with Ian Fitzsimmons on a daily basis, Wilson can evince his expertise and proficiency in sports talk radio. Moreover, he has an immense professional network embedded in football, which allows him to contact industry luminaries and assist in guest booking. Wilson provides her perspectives and analysis throughout the show, blending shrewd intellect with lighthearted repartee grounded in sports.
“The thing that I pride myself most in is that I would like to think that I can kind of fit in with anyone, anywhere,” Wilson said. “I think there’s a lot of hosts in our business that maybe are a little bit more one-dimensional. I like to think that I am pretty multifaceted in what I can do and what I can bring to the table.”
Before a typical edition of Amber & Ian, the team holds a production meeting where they decipher topics and remain attuned to the news cycle. Wilson made a concerted effort to continue immersing herself in sports while away from the show, taking notes and reading everything she could to prevent herself from feeling overwhelmed or uninformed.
“I will say though that you are underwater if you’re not just constantly consuming because if you let yourself fall behind at all, then it’s too much to play catch up,” Wilson said, “and that was my biggest concern being on maternity leave honestly was [for] a couple months there, I’m not on the air every day, and so I’m not talking about these things every day.”
Wilson hosts the radio show from home, allowing for her to spend time with her family and avoid a daily commute. Having the technology to broadcast a radio show remotely has provided benefits in that it diminishes the guilt she feels hosting in the evenings while her children are home. Joining ESPN fulfilled her childhood dream of working for the company, and she understands that the inability to select hours is one of the more difficult parts of the business.
“My career didn’t go necessarily on the track that I thought it was going to and it wasn’t a straight line to get to ESPN by any means,” Wilson said, “but the ending ends up being ultimately in the same destination that I eventually thought I would be, even if the journey was a lot bumpier along the way with [more] twists and turns than I expected.”
Wilson comes from a family of lawyers and decided to pursue a law degree while freelancing at various media outlets, fearing that she would regret not applying before her LSAT score expired. Over the years, Wilson practiced as an attorney with several respected groups and co-founded a firm with her husband, but she is currently limited in her legal work due to her commitments and responsibilities with ESPN. Wilson and her husband have represented several professional athletes in cases related to family law and crisis management, and while they do not divulge their clientele, there have been instances where they are the subject matter during her radio shows.
“There are times that I do wonder if there’s going to be a conflict,” Wilson said. “I haven’t run into that at any point. In fact, it’s kind of made all of it make sense in my life where what I do on the legal side still feels like it has something to do with sports.”
During Wilson’s formative years in the business, she hosted programming for a variety of entities, but she ended up wanting to explore radio and made occasional appearances with Sid Rosenberg on 790 The Ticket. When Joy Taylor departed the station’s morning drive show, program director Len Weiner offered Wilson an audition, and it became apparent in short order that she would be her successor.
“I give Zaslow a lot of credit for making sure that when Joy decided to leave that he was replacing her with another female voice,” Wilson said. “That was something that was important to him and provided a different dynamic in the market, and then also just our chemistry and our rapport. We had so much fun on that show, so you got sports talk [and] you also got a lot of fun.”
When Entercom acquired CBS Radio in 2017, they ended up with ownership of two local sports talk radio stations in 790 The Ticket and 560 WQAM. Wilson knew that the arrangement of operating two stations in the format would not last, and she was saddened to learn that they chose to reformat the 790 AM frequency five years later. Wilson had departed her daily show with Zaslow one year earlier to focus more on her law practice and host weekends for ESPN Radio.
“Yeah, it was rough,” Wilson recalled. “Obviously, I cared about everybody there and I cared very much about that radio station, and so that was a huge bummer and, I think, another indication of just some of the trials and tribulations that face the radio industry.”
Wilson feels confident towards the management structure at ESPN Radio, saying she feels more supported at the outlet than ever before. Over her five years with the company, she has participated in numerous ventures and is energized as her career continues to progress. Yet she does have greater apprehension surrounding the industry at large as it pertains to how executives at other companies may value the medium.
“I think that most of the radio hosts are kind of grossly underutilized and that there’s a lot of people when you work at the big corporations that don’t realize what they have, frankly, on the radio side and in the radio department because radio departments can kind of end up being a bit of an aftermath, and so that’s the concern,” Wilson said. “That’s the shame is that there’s this diamond in the rough sitting over there that could have an incredibly bright future and that it will get overlooked by the people who can make it happen.”
Even though Wilson oftentimes hosts her program while live games are taking place, she feels it can be a distinct advantage in being able to react to news in real time. On top of that, the three-hour show often feels like it moves quickly since she enjoys the work. Having started on a morning show, Wilson understands how to effectively run on adrenaline and convey energy and excitement on the airwaves. Being back on the road for the ESPN Radio College Football Tailgate Tour over the next several weeks, Wilson will be immersed in enthusiasm and fervor ahead of high-stakes matchups.
“I am so thankful and grateful to the guys for holding it down while I was gone so we didn’t get canceled,” Wilson said, “and they must have done a good job because it does seem like we will be back again next year, and I am so happy to actually be on the road for a full season with them next year and get to experience all those environments.”
Wilson remains motivated through her passion for the craft, but she knows that her growth both within and outside of the medium will not continue unless supplemented by unwavering commitment and work ethic. On occasion, Wilson makes contributions to ESPN studio programming, such as Get Up and First Take, and she hopes to take part in more television shows in the future. As someone who enjoys being multifaceted and versatile, she aspires to face more challenges that will enrich her skillset and supplement her growth while always maintaining an avidity for radio.
“I’m just a person who really wants to have a good life and enjoy what they’re doing, and I feel really, really fortunate that I have a job that I actually want to get back to,” Wilson said. “That when I’m on maternity leave, that I’m chomping at the bit to get back to it as opposed to considering how to never go back, and I know how unbelievably fortunate I am for that.”
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