It was 3 a.m. when Mike Eaby returned home from a thrilling Monday Night Football matchup between the Philadelphia Eagles and Atlanta Falcons, engaging in a routine embedded in his lifestyle for the last 25 years. Oftentimes situated within various press boxes around the league, Eaby is inextricably tied to radio broadcasts of prime time NFL games throughout the regular season and playoffs. Westwood One is in the midst of its 38th consecutive season as the exclusive network radio partner of the NFL, providing radio play-by-play coverage of marquee games and broadcast properties. These national broadcasts are distributed to various radio stations across the United States.
This season, however, Eaby needs to manage his travel schedule differently and is considering being on site for a game every other week. Earlier in the year, he was named as the new vice president and executive producer of Westwood One, granting him significant oversight of the radio network and its operations.
“I’m trying to pick and choose my games, which is also bittersweet because I love being in the stadiums, I love being at the games [and] I love the energy of sports play-by-play and producing those broadcasts,” Eaby said, “but I also know at the end of the day, it’s probably better for us as a department if I’m not traveling to a game every week.”
Maintaining relationships in the sports media business is essential and helps drive partnerships and innovation. Under his new role, Eaby finds himself on the phone and in more meetings than ever before, including traveling to New Orleans to meet with professionals from the NFL ahead of Super Bowl LIX. When he is behind the wheel, Eaby frequently listens to other broadcasts and feels that Westwood One is distinctive for listeners.
“If you’re driving around and listening to our broadcasts, you’re getting exactly what I think you’re looking for [as] a listener,” Eaby said. “Whether you’re trying to listen to your favorite team or you’re just interested in your favorite sport or your fantasy team or you have some other interests, we’re giving you, I think, exactly what you need, and we’re going to continue to look to inform and entertain the listener.”
Synchronous with his promotion to the role, Howard Deneroff departed Westwood One after working with the company for more than three decades. Deneroff, who played a significant role in constructing the sports department within the radio network, has been a mentor to Eaby and someone with whom he worked for many years.
The ambivalence towards his promotion, conversely, derives from the fact that he has presumably been building towards this role and was ready to step up. At the same time, having a company veteran move into the role has provided consistency for his colleagues and eliminated sentiments of ambiguity. As a result, he has needed to separate his emotive perspectives from that of the business environment, and establishing that dichotomy has facilitated an inconspicuous comprehension of his responsibilities.
“There’s various people that Howie dealt with that obviously are just getting to learn who I am, but then there’s people I talk to just as much as Howie ever did or even more that are close, especially the talent and the day-to-day personnel within our department,” Eaby said. “I don’t really feel like it has been a huge transition for anyone because they’ve all known me for all these years and I’ve always been there lock in step with Howie for all these things, so I don’t know that I felt a ton of pressure.”
That being said, there are some elements of pressure imputed to the post that merit consideration, one of which was assuring his contemporaries that everything would be okay. Throughout the summer, he emphasized that message and affirmed his feelings that the company was at the top of its craft, something he believes can be audibly discerned in the early stages of the football season.
“I’m demanding without being too pushy,” Eaby said. “I give folks the freedom to make mistakes and to learn from those mistakes, I think.”
Deneroff did not have his contract renewed by Westwood One, which was not Eaby’s decision, and he remarked that it is rare to have a script authored in the way one desires. In this instance, Deneroff’s departure was ostensibly viewed as sudden and unforeseen, implicitly signaling the start of a new era at the outlet.
“This was a total surprise for me,” Eaby said. “I wish there was a little bit more lead-up time to it, and I kind of knew that there was going to be maybe a transition. But you know what? It’s okay. We’re moving forward, and that’s where we are.”
Akin to the tenure of Deneroff, Eaby has been a member of Westwood One for over two decades and has worked for the company the majority of his professional career. Chris Castleberry hired Eaby to work at Westwood One and Mutual Radio in 1997, and he served as a friend and mentor early in his career, which he conveyed deviates from the presumed norm.
In his new position, Eaby works alongside Bruce Gilbert, the senior vice president of sports for Cumulus Media and Westwood One, a role he has held since 2015. Eaby said Gilbert has given him the freedom to explore what changes he may want to make and determine the best decision for everyone, and he has also received immense support and guidance from Westwood One president Collin Jones.
“I’ve been really appreciative of the fact that I don’t think they [have] micromanaged me,” Eaby said. “They’re keeping an eye on things – they have to – but I don’t feel pressure from them, so that was a huge relief and it’s certainly a dynamic I wasn’t sure how it was going to play out when I first got the news, but I’m extremely pleased of where we’re at and where all of our relationships are at.”
Kevin Harlan is entering his 15th season behind the microphone for the network and is again be joined by Kurt Warner as the lead broadcast duo. On the preceding day, Ryan Radtke and Mike Golic commentate the Sunday Night Football action, while Ian Eagle and Kevin Kugler primarily call the Thursday Night Football games. The lineup possesses experience, insight and skills evident to listeners on a weekly basis, maintaining a strong roster of professionals who bring information and entertainment to the airwaves.
“I think our talent is second to none,” Eaby said. “I actually had lunch [recently] with Kevin Harlan, and I likened our play-by-play announcers to Murderer’s Row with the 1927 Yankees.”
While Eaby did not make wholesale changes to this portion of the index, he and his team added several new analysts with fresh perspectives on the game. Among these new Westwood One broadcasters is former cornerback Devin McCourty, offensive lineman Ross Tucker and head coach Ron Rivera. Eaby realizes the importance of working them into the schedule and yielding an array of voices within the coverage.
“We do every NFL game that’s not in that Sunday window at 1 or 4:00 in the afternoon, so there you have opportunities to kind of refresh things and to tweak things and to try new things,” Eaby said, “and I think without going overboard, I think you will see that in the next couple of years [trying] to kind of mix in a few people here or there that do give us that fresh and unique perspective.”
Part of what made Deneroff particularly strong in the position was in his evaluation of talent and their subsequent performance. Having worked alongside him for many years, Eaby has witnessed the network’s acquisition of new announcers and acknowledges that it is “a constant search.” Aspects of the process come through effective research and time management, along with agents pitching him their clients and reviewing their previous experience. Eaby also receives recommendations from other people in the industry as to potential accruals in the overall lineup.
“…[We] haven’t had these huge meetings where we’ve had these big brainstorming sessions about talent because we were so comfortable with who we already had, so I don’t think it’s going to be anything that kind of happens quickly or overnight,” Eaby explained. “I just think it’s more of an organic thing that kind of happens over time.”
Outside of NFL games, Westwood One also broadcasts coverage of NCAA football and recently revealed new play-by-play announcer Nate Gatter. Working alongside eight-year NFL veteran Derek Rackley, the duo has called several matchups in the early season, including a marquee game between Miami and Florida. Eaby speaks with Gatter after every game and has been pleased with how the broadcasts have sounded while also suggesting areas for improvement. For example, after his inaugural broadcast where he maintained awareness of the action, Eaby challenged him to combine the rudiments with entertainment and levity.
“I’m excited in the fact that he’s come out of the gates, [and] he’s done a fantastic job,” Eaby said, “but his willingness to get even better, I think, is going to make him special down the road.”
As Eaby and the team at Westwood One press forward, he is energized to present robust sports programming and continue refining mechanisms related to its responsibilities to operate commensurate to the times. Moreover, he is lending his team the freedom to be creative, something he feels will elicit favorable results and contribute to the overall proliferation of the brand. When he looks back on his early stages in the new role, he hopes the brand remains in an analogous position with augmented efficiency while continuing to build and exhibit the strongest product possible to the marketplace.
“While I don’t have a complete crystal ball, I think the big thing for us is just to make sure that we’re exploring every avenue possible,” Eaby said. “Getting our product to the listeners is paramount. It’s great for sales, it’s great for listenership [and] it’s great for our image, so we will continue to look at ways to expand and update with the times as far as all that is concerned, and I’m excited.”
