For 7 years, Zach Bye co-hosted the highly successful midday show Stokley and Zach on Denver Sports 104.3 The Fan in Denver. After a ten-year run of working in the Albany area, Bye was tasked with turning a former football player into a talk show host.
It was a tutoring job well done by Zach Bye as the show became a huge success.
“Stokley and Zach was a smashing hit because the chemistry first and foremost was so organic,” said Bye. “We had a lot of natural human connection that I’m already beginning to see with Phil.”
“Phil” is former University of Colorado and Denver Broncos running back Phillip Lindsay, Bye’s co-host on The Drive and, in the words of Yogi Berra, “it’s déjà vu all over again” as Zach Bye has a new student, this time in afternoon drive.
The Drive launched a little over a month ago and the early results are promising.
“I know we have a long way to go,” said Bye. “If I’m being real, we’re probably a little bit ahead of where I thought we were going to be when we started considering that Phil had never done radio before. The reason that I think that we’re just ahead of the chains by one first down is because of Phil’s energy and enthusiasm for this new role.”
Bye’s job is helped by the fact that Lindsay shows up for work every day wanting to be a success. As a player, Lindsay put in the necessary work to prepare and trusted what the coaches told him to get better on the field. And now, Bye is Lindsay’s coach and he has a student willing to soak up knowledge like a sponge.
There’s a lot to talk about, other than football, in Denver so the goal is to get Lindsay up to speed on the other sports.
“He acknowledges what he doesn’t know,” said Bye. “His vigor to attack what he doesn’t know and what I’m coaching him with has made it a little bit easier than you would imagine considering he had never done one hour of radio. The fact that Phil checks those same fundamental boxes as Stokley did, it gives me confidence that one year from now, this show will be closer to where it needs to be.”
Preparation to do a sports talk show is not much different than what it takes to be a success in the classroom. You come home from school and you do your homework so you can be prepared for what lies ahead the next day.
So, what does it take for someone to “cram” so to speak when hosting a show?
“That is a great freaking question,” said Bye. “It’s just dedicating yourself to watching the games. Nothing will replace watching the games. (Phil) is committed to putting the time in of learning who these teams are, learning the personality of these teams, learning the history of these teams.”
Lindsay is catching on quickly and he has to working with Zach Bye who himself prepares for every show with a passion and a will to win that sets him apart from other talk show hosts. Whether it’s sitting at home mapping out segments for that day’s show or simply taking that seat in the studio for the show all pumped up and ready to go, Bye has a clear understanding of what it takes to have a great show.
“When you’re wired the way that I am and obsessive about the show being successful, it’s hard for me to get along with someone who is not on the same page from a vigor standpoint,” said Bye. “The fact that he checks those boxes, for me, is such a great foundation to build upward from.”
Zach Bye has endeared himself to the Denver community by not only being a terrific sports talk show host but he has also worked very hard to be a fan of the Denver teams. When you’re a host or any other type of media member, you generally have access to press credentials to go to games in your market. In Bye’s case, he could get a credential to any game in town.
But most of the time, he chooses not to. Aside from getting credentials for Nuggets games, Bye said he would rather sit in the stands with the fans.
“You know how many times I’ve used my press credential to go to Broncos games?” Bye rhetorically asked me during our phone conversation. “Zero.”
“You know how many times I’ve used my press credential to go to a Rockies game? Once. My first ever one and I sat there and I said ‘Wait a second…I want to sit with the fans. I want to have a beer’.”
“When I go to the Avs games, I buy a ticket. I spent thousands of dollars to be at every round of the Avalanche (Stanley) Cup run.”
Bye spent a fortune to go to the Avalanche playoff games during the 2021-22 season paying prices like $400, $500, and $600 to sit with the fans. That’s a lot of money, but he can justify it.
“I told my wife, we’ll always replace the money,” said Bye. “But if I’m doing this in this town for the next 25 years, you’ll never be able to replace saying into a microphone ‘Hey I was there in 2021 for the Cup’. You can’t put a value on that.”
A big reason why Bye likes to sit in the stands is that he enjoys sitting with a friend or even making new friends while enjoying a game. Going to games was not something he was able to do growing up because he didn’t have the money to buy a ticket.
“I grew up broke,” said Zach Bye. “My single mom raised me and my brother with nothing. Nothing. So, when I go to these games (he thinks about how) I never was even able to be in the arena.”
Bye’s father was in the Navy and Bye was born on a Navy base in Brunswick, Maine. The family’s next stop was Upstate New York but Bye’s parents divorced and his mother decided that they were going to stay in Scotia, New York, a village in Schenectady County about 25 miles from Albany. Bye went to The College of St. Rose and then embarked on a broadcasting career working at “The Team” ESPN Radio in Albany and calling University of Albany games.
He did that for ten years and then came a call from Armen Williams, the Program Director of The Fan in Denver.
That would lead to a Mile High change in his life.
“Armen changed my life by giving me the job in Denver,” said Bye. “I was working for ten years and I said to my girlfriend at the time who is now my wife I said I’m going to give this until I’m 30 because I don’t want to have regrets. I don’t want to be driving down the road listening to some guy on the radio who I know didn’t watch the game, who I know didn’t do prep and it’s going to drive me nuts. Armen gave me my job in year number ten. He taught me the extra layers of radio that I was never coached on.”
Early in 2022, Williams left Denver Sports 104.3 The Fan and was replaced by Raj Sharan who has also meant a lot to Bye’s growth as a sports talk show host.
“Raj empowered me to a level that I’ve never been empowered before,” said Bye. “My program director has not talked to me about content in 4 years or five years. He says to me, ‘When you go on the air, I can shut the radio off’, and that’s the biggest compliment that I could ever get because he knows we’re in good hands when my hands are on the steering wheel and that empowerment is a unique kind of dimension to be in.”
Moving from market to market is something that comes with the territory of being in sports radio. Some are fortunate enough to go right to work in their hometown market. Some take a job elsewhere and go city to city with the hope of getting back home. In Bye’s case, he spent ten years at home and has now found a new home.
Getting adjusted to new surroundings can be a challenge, but there’s a way to do it.
“The best I could give to a young broadcaster moving to a new city is be humble and be a sponge,” said Bye. “Acknowledge what you don’t know. Put in the work so you have context to have conversations that go beyond last night’s game. Embed yourself in the community.”
And now Zach Bye is a huge part of the Denver community and he’s been tasked with the challenge of building another highly successful sports radio show at The Fan.
Considering where he came from growing up and what he’s accomplished, Bye reflects on his career by channeling his inner Lou Gehrig.
“I feel like I’m one of the luckiest,” said Zach Bye. “My wife would smack me for saying I’m lucky because she knows how much work I’ve put in for it but I just feel like I’m in such an intersection of a great position and a great time to be talking about Colorado sports. We have the MVP in basketball, the World Champions in basketball, the favorites to win the Stanley Cup again…I just feel so lucky man.”
