One day at a time. One month at a time. One book at a time. That is how Dave Fleck helped Altitude Sports Radio get to the level of success it enjoys now.
Of course, being the flagship station of the Denver Avalanche built a nice base for what happened last week, because the station is also the flagship of the Denver Nuggets. Market conditions, sometimes, work just as effectively as any talent or promotion ever could.
In this week’s Meet the Market Managers column, presented by Point to Point Marketing, Fleck talks about how small ideas can turn into great sales success, the amount of work and the kind of expectations that come with taking money from sportsbooks, and why it is important for a GM and a PD to gel.
Demetri Ravanos: Let’s start by talking about the last week. Obviously, a huge deal for you guys in Denver. Take me through the lead-up to and what we’re all the moving parts between programing and sales were to make sure that not only did you have full coverage of the Nuggets in their celebration, but also that on the sales side, you were able to take full advantage of that moment.
Dave Fleck: Luckily Demetri, it’s been two years. We had good practice last year with our Avalanche and their Stanley Cup and the culmination of award-winning, great coverage last year for our Avalanche. So fortunately, we had just been through it several months earlier, but our team did a fantastic job – our radio team in addition to the team on the court. It’s a lot of moving parts that come down quickly.
Once you hit the Western Conference Finals, it really transcends your average and typical sports fan and just becomes something the entire community embraces. Sweeping the Lakers, they’ve been our nemesis for many years in trying to get over that hump, that was a big step. You could feel the excitement around the city, not just with the Lakers, but going in, even though we were a number one seed, as a bit of an underdog to the Suns. The community, the entire city just got so excited and could see kind of what the future might bring to us in the form of a championship. So it was it was a lot going on.
Our team did a fantastic job from the coverage standpoint. We’re very fortunate in that we’ve got a lot of crossover talent with our RSN, Altitude Sports Television. Two of our morning show guys, Vic Lombardi and Marc Moser, are doing television for Altitude. Chris Dempsey, who’s on middays has been a Nuggets anchor for many years. Scott Hastings does color analysis for television. So, we’re very fortunate to be with the team and very fortunate to have ownership that owns both the team and the radio station. I think that that puts us in a position to really bring the best content that we possibly can to the community. Our guys were on their game. They were topical, they were fun, and they were entertaining. Listeners want that kind of behind-the-velvet-rope experience. When you have talent that travels with the team and are closely connected, you get those stories and you get the content that people want. I think our team delivers it in an entertaining way.
DR: One of the things that I’ve heard from multiple people about Denver sports radio is that fans there were conditioned for a very specific type of sports talk – a professional host sets up a former Bronco. You guys bucked that trend a while ago, and now obviously, the timing couldn’t be better to have people involved in so many other sports.
How have listeners reacted? Did it take time for them to get used to something different, or did you guys find that entertainment is entertainment, and if it was good, the listeners were going to be there?
DF: I think the listeners were there. Once they found us, they were entertained. We never had much of an issue with time spent listening, Demetri. It was all about building more cume. That tells me that once people found us, they really enjoyed a few things. One is that it is entertaining and another is that we talk about all sports – not even just the teams that we’re the flagship for.
We cover high school, we talk soccer, golf, college football, and college athletics. We talk about it all, whether it’s Air Force Academy, CU, and CSU. Certainly there’s plenty to talk about up at CU. We pride ourselves on talking all sports but, you know, it’s this is an NFL town.
The Broncos have a rich history and we certainly talk Broncos in an entertaining fashion and have hired talent that can do that. Certainly, the Avalanche and Nuggets, the city of Denver and the region have been nuts over the two teams that we are fortunate enough to be the flagship for.
DR: So given that for so long sports talk in the town was Broncos-focused to the point that those two teams you just mentioned rarely got the kind of spotlight that you guys have been able to give them, did you find that you guys are talking to a different segment of the sports talk demographic? Are you guys skewing a little bit younger than you might expect a sports station in Denver to?
DF: We are doing well with the 18 to 34-year-old segment. I think our talent is part of that. You’ve got Bret Kane that anchors the morning show with Vic and Mos. I think Bret brings in that younger audience. In midday, certainly Chris Dempsey’s a veteran in the business but he’s partnered with Alex Rajaniemi, “Raj”, who is a young man that is a sports encyclopedia. Then. from an entertainment standpoint, Matt McChesney, former CU Buffalo football player, former Bronco and NFL player, brings an entertainment side and a characteristic that that is is unique to Matt McChesney.
I don’t know that we’re actively saying we want to go younger. For me, I just want us to be entertaining, whether you’re you’re 22 or 52. I’m 56 and I’m a sports talk junkie. I just love being entertained and I love hearing about all the different sports.
I think you create a culture. That’s what’s important to me – creating a culture where we want to win. We want to be the best. Everybody just rolls up their sleeves and works hard and a lot of people wear a lot of different hats at the station and everybody’s willing to jump in and do whatever they can.
You know, you’ve got Andy Lindhal in afternoon drive, who was a long-time Broncos sideline reporter. He knows the nuances of training camp, so he can help get us in good positions, get us interviews with former players, and things of that nature. It’s a team effort. You know, it’s not just Kevin Shockey, our program director, and myself and management. It’s all the talent creating a culture where they speak up. “How do we win?” “What’s the best thing for this radio station so that we can entertain, entertain our listeners?”
DR: So I want to ask you about Kevin, because it was around this time last year that you started that search for a new program director. I wonder if going into it you had a concrete idea of what it was you were looking for. I mean, KSE is obviously a very different business than a lot of radio ownership groups are. Is there anything in that search that you knew you needed that might surprise even people in the business?
DF: I was looking for somebody with good energy – good, positive energy. It didn’t necessarily have to come with a wealth of experience in sports talk, although Kevin was an assistant program director at KJR in Seattle for a long time. I knew relatively from the first time that I met him on a Teams call like this. I just felt really good about his energy. Candidly, he had big shoes to fill from the person that was in here before, because I trusted that person and he did a lot.
Kevin is very different from what we had here before. His energy level is different. Our former program director was a little bit more methodical and Kevin is excited and always comes in with fresh ideas.
I just wanted somebody that I could gel with and we could have an open dialog. You know, I certainly have thoughts, but they’re not always right. And I wanted somebody that was comfortable to say, “Hey, what about this instead? I know you, I know you like it this way, but can we try this this way.” And I like that about him. He speaks up, speaks his mind, and we come to a quick consensus on most of our decision-making.
At the end of the day, it’s his station to program, and I want him to have the autonomy to do that.
DR: I want to go back to the idea that KSE is not your typical radio business. I think anybody that has never worked for a station like that, they have a preconceived notion of what it means to be the station owned by the team. What are the realities? What are the realities of not only expectations for your air staff but for you as well when it comes to coverage or advertising those four teams that Kroenke owns?
DF : We’re, as I said, incredibly fortunate. I was with Fox Sports prior to Mr. Kroenke starting Altitude Television, and a group of us came over when Altitude was launched. Then he buys the radio stations and it is unique. I don’t know, maybe there’s one or two other sports entities in the country. You can look at Toronto and maybe MSG with their television network, that is team owned. So we are unique and that while we’re the flagship we’re also owned by the company that owns the teams.
I want our talent to be real. I want them to be honest. If they need to critique the team, coaches, players, whatever, they can do that, but they need to be fair. I would say that not just about our teams, but really any team in the market. I don’t want us going out and attacking the Rockies because they’re having a tough season. We can critique, but I don’t want anybody to get nasty. Just call it how it is. You don’t need to bad-mouth ownership. You can point out some challenges that other teams are having in the market.
I certainly don’t want name-calling or doing things like that to our teams, because we are owned by the Kroenkes, but we can certainly be fair and critique and bring up the challenges that our teams have. So it’s a balance, but I would expect us to respect those boundaries of any ownership, whether it’s Kroenke or any other team.
DR: You guys have a sales promotion sales partnership that I really like because as simple as it is, I am guessing it involved every department. It’s the “Ska Friday” you guys do on the afternoon show. I made it’s named for a brewing company that sponsors it. The idea is simple – stupid, terrible ska music. They play it out of breaks.
Again, simple, but I would imagine that’s the kind of thing that Andy Lindahl, Nate Kreckman and their producer all have to be a part of, maybe not from conception, but on a weekly basis, certainly to make work.
DF: Absolutely, and it was from conception. Buy-in from the talent is really important. It started on the sales end. Nate even did kind of an audition dance because he thought he thought that is what they wanted. You know what? He owned it. He wanted to move the needle for the client.
I will tell you whether it’s Ska Brewing or any of our other advertisers, I try not to get too caught up in the monthly ratings. Certainly, it’s part of what we do and it’s the currency that we trade on. We are having great success with those ratings currently, but it’s one book at a time. We’ve seen great development with that, but I don’t let that be the be-all and end-all. For me, Demetri, it’s do we get results.
If our revenue continues to grow month in and month out and our advertisers continue to stick with us and every month continue to spend their advertising dollars with us, then that means we’re working for them. We’re getting results for them. When I see the kind of growth that we’ve had from a revenue standpoint, not just our own growth year to year, but just in comparison to the marketplace, what we’re doing specifically from a local revenue standpoint, it makes me really proud of the sales team and the on-air staff and the promotions staff and the engineering staff. Everybody’s working together to put out the best possible product that we can. It’s getting results for advertisers and they’re going to continue to renew with us month in and month out. That’s what excites me most, because while the ratings are growing and we’re building that cume, and I’m thankful that we’re the flagship of world championship teams, I also know that it’s the hard work that this team is doing day-in and day-out, putting out great content, coming up with superb sales ideas to put in front of clients and a promotions department that fulfills it.
I put us up against anybody in the market with how we facilitate and implement our promotions and ad campaigns. So if the revenue is growing, that means we’re doing something right for our advertisers.
DR: So speaking of doing something right for your advertisers, Colorado was in the first wave of states to legalize sports betting once it was left up to states. I remember listening to not only you guys around that time, but other stations in the marker as well. Every sportsbook in the world was buying those stations at that time. I do have to ask, because I think this is really interesting as more and more states legalize and people are a little bit more methodical about those buys, how did you approach that advertising as a company?
The Colorado market exploded. There had to be some things either initially or over time you that you thought about. Did you put any guideline in place, both for advertisers and sellers to make sure that the advertisers’ message wasn’t getting lost amongst so much competition?
DF: Yeah, I think we’ve done a really good job of giving each of those gaming companies something they can hang their hat on. That speaks to creativity within the sales department and the production group and cutting out a little piece of something that those gaming companies can own.
Colorado is very fortunate as an entire media market to be one of the early ones to approve gaming. I’m especially proud of our group our ad sellers, and I guess I’m fortunate in coming with my background, coming in from the sponsorship and television side and the arena sponsorship. You know, you get accustomed to asking for those larger dollars than maybe you typically would on the radio side.
We saw this category coming in and we knew it was it was flush with cash. So how do we do the best job that we can for those gaming companies as well as for our organization? I mean, everybody wants an endorser, but there’s only so many on-air talents that you can have or producers to endorse a product. Early on, we set specific parameters and thresholds that those gaming companies had to meet and we were very successful in holding that line.
You get a lot of sellers that say, “Oh, my gosh, we’ve got to take this deal!”. Well, no, we don’t have to take this deal. We can wait and we can see what else comes in. If they want multiple endorsers, then they have to pay for that. Just because they’re coming in and spending a decent amount of money doesn’t mean they just get carte blanche on the number of endorsers. If they wanted special promotions, then we would create those for them. But it came with a specific spending parameter that they had to meet. Fast forward to 2020 coming out of COVID, it was great to have that happen here in the state.
As more states come online, that category starts shrinking. A lot of players were in that category initially. Some have been bought out, some just folded up shop and it’s consolidated a little bit. So through that consolidation and as that category matures, you change your strategy and your parameters. I’m still really happy with what we’ve done in that category from both from a revenue standpoint and more importantly, how we work for each of those companies to have success with what we can offer, whether that is specific promotions, tying them into certain endorsers, or coming up with something unique for them.
I’ll give you an example. We’ve got Betsafe here, which is a great supporter of ours. They like to educate, so we come up with an idea for betting tips. You know, “what does ‘the money line’ mean?” and “what is an ‘over/under’?”. We’re looking at different betting terminology that that the average person may not understand and explaining that to them and using 15 second ads to just share that knowledge. We’re not recreating the wheel, but it’s coming up with different ideas for each gaming company. We need to move the needle for them and generate activations for each of those apps.
