Connect with us
Jim Cutler Demos

BSM Writers

Meet The Market Managers: Jeff Tyler, iHeartMedia Milwaukee

“To not take risks is to not change and not move on. I think the company is pushed the right way. It’s not like I’m drinking the Kool-Aid. I truly believe that.”

Demetri Ravanos

Published

on

Sitting in the boss’s seat was supposed to be a temporary thing for Jeff Tyler. He was just going to oversee Capstar Broadcasting’s Madison, Wisconsin cluster for a short period until a new permanent manager was found. He was a programmer. He was supposed to be on the air.

Fortunately, the boss that Jeff eventually replaced was forward thinking enough to see that it could benefit all parties involved if he had his PD involved in sales meetings. That gave Jeff a level of understanding that he needed to make the transition to a more general leadership role and the rest as they say is history.

Face Time: Radio boss Jeff Tyler, iHeart Media Inc. - Minneapolis / St.  Paul Business Journal

During his tenure with iHeartMedia, Jeff has overseen many stations, including the company’s marquee local sports brand in Minneapolis, KFAN. After a stint in the Twin Cities, he moved south to Milwaukee to help oversee the launch of 97.3 The Game. As a regional president, Jeff’s worked with established sports brands such as KJR in Seattle, and Denver’s KOA, as well as the ill-fated Orange & Blue 760. iHeart knows they have a leader who understands all aspects of operating a successful radio brand, especially local sports radio stations.

Not bad for a guy that was offered his first GM role while in a hospital bed after knee surgery, right?

In the conversation below, Jeff talks about his rise through the ranks at iHeartMedia, which elements of KFAN’s success could and couldn’t be duplicated when 97.3 The Game arrived on the scene in Milwaukee, and how radio fits into iHeartMedia’s overall business plan.


Demetri Ravanos: You started on the programming side, first as a talent before moving into the PD role. Then came the move into overseeing the entire operation. Let’s start there. What was that feeling or realization like when you became a station manager for the first time? Is there anything that you can remember going through your head as you’re excited about the opportunity yet also trying to figure out the best strategy for convincing people on the sales staff that you are the right guy to be their leader too?

Jeff Tyler: I guess I was preparing without knowing I was preparing for it. It happened in Madison. We were one of the first consolidated markets after the telecom bill. Somebody came in and bought the two big players in town. I think at that time I was on the air and programming Z104 and WTSO in Madison for Midcontinent Broadcasting. Then when it was purchased and they bought LL Broadcasting, all the sticks got put together and I said ‘let’s go’.

The station owner of the three LL Broadcasting stations was put in charge of the cluster at first. That was Capstar Broadcasting. Mary Kwas was the Region President and she was the one to give me my first shot. She did not think the other guy was up to the task. I was having knee surgery, actually from playing too much basketball in high school and college, which that’s about all I got out of it…and an education I guess.             

So she called me in the hospital and said, “Hey, would you like to oversee the stations? You have been the de facto station manager.”              

Lee (the previous manager) always brought me into sales and had me understand why he was doing things, much to his credit. I said to him, “I’ve never sold.” He says “You sell every day. You just don’t know rates and revenue. But you understand bottom line and expense thinking. You have a good business acumen. So you’ll be fine. And you’re a great communicator.”                

May be an image of 2 people and people smiling

So, to his credit, he gave me that exposure. When Mary said, “would you like to run it while I search for a new general manager,” I said, sure. Six months later, she called me and said, “I haven’t had any luck. Do you want the job?”

I said yes of course. As far as the team was concerned, for anybody to elevate within a group, you’re going to go from a pure level to some kind of management level for some people, if not all of them. I went from a peer in programing to a superior just in terms of stature to all of them. The key in those situations is understanding that and knowing how to handle it. If all of a sudden you’re their buddy one day, and the next you’re saying “I’m your boss now,” that’s bullshit and it won’t work. That’s where people trip up. I think I had enough good mentors over the years to teach me that and maybe just common sense.

The key is knowing you don’t know everything, and counting on people that know things that you don’t, being a sponge, being a leader, being a communicator and being someone that will look for the consensus on certain things. At some point, you’re ultimately responsible, but having people in the room that have opinions and viewpoints and history is really important. Any good leader’s got to have that in mind or you’re not going to make it. 

DR: Why is your path such an uncommon one now? What are the barriers that top level management sees to the benefits of bringing someone from the programing side into top level management? 

JT: I think it’s the perception and it goes back forever, probably. If you look at the programing side and promotions, they spend money, right? The sales side makes money. I think especially in iHeartMedia, we’ve done a good job of bringing a lot of programmers along. The people in our positions now and the leadership in programing understand our business side really well. They understand the need to build content that is a good marketing tool for advertisers. It’s just not this side of the room and that side of the room at odds, which was radio forever and ever.

I think if you have a business mindset and an acumen to understand what’s needed – I mean the modeling, the pricing, and stuff like that is just math. But if you understand how it works and what’s needed, you know you can’t say, “Well, I’m just going to build this for programing and run it without any advertisers involved,” well, that’s just stupid. The consumer doesn’t care anymore. Consumers understand that KDWB and Pepsi are giving you a chance to win ten thousand dollars. They don’t care. No one is in their car saying “Oh, my God! They’re whoring out the station.” Those days are over. Product placement and smart content management with an advertiser viewpoint is really important. For those that have it, there’s no there’s no barrier. You just have to make it known within the building. You have to have that desire and then attach yourself to someone that will mentor you to a position that you want to be in. No one’s going to look around the room and say “Ok, you!”. Make it known. Speak up. Say “I want to be here. What do I need to do to be here?” and be prepared to do that.

DR: What were some of the hiccups along the way once you got into a bigger management role and started running larger and larger entities? What are some of the things you had to learn on the job that were different about a market manager’s role from a regional president’s role?

JT: Every station, every makeup of talent is different. I remember the people that bought Clear Channel at one time, the Bain Capital folks, from what I heard, it drove them crazy because they were an investment company. They looked at it as a math problem. “There’s four FMs and two AMs in this market and there’s four FMs and two AMs in this market. Why wouldn’t it just be the same thing? Why isn’t the same outcome?”

Everything is different, and I think you need to really understand the history of the station, where it sits in the marketplace, where it sits in the minds of the consumer, where the talent is, how new it is, how engaged in the community it is, how long it’s been there, and then not just make random assumptions. You really have to dig in and understand what’s going on and look at the chess pieces you’re dealt.

Let’s say you have six stations. Which ones are the ones you can count on right now? Which are developmental? What do you have to do to position them differently?

That was the biggest thing for me, stepping back and and not looking at programing as “I just want to fix my station”. It’s “what can we do collectively to impact the market?”. Because we were an early consolidator, we tried a lot of things. We we sold three FMs or four FMs and two AMs together. Then we tried a couple of variations. We ended up selling the whole cluster. Why wouldn’t you just have every bullet in the gun?

I still think that’s being figured out. The most current incarnation that we have is you can be so clustered, but within that you may have specialty people that really lean one way, somebody understands say, conservative talk radio or sports talk radio. So it’s those nuances. It’s that fine tuning thing and looking through a different lens. That’s what I had to really learn and and grow with in the more markets I had. It became more dynamic.

DR: When you are talking about looking through a different lens and you are both overseeing an entire region and a cluster in a major market, how do you find the balance? How do you find the time to consciously switch between those lenses that you need in order to do both roles successfully? That seems like a lot for one person to take on. 

JT: Well, you can’t. You have to surround yourself with good people. I think my team in Minneapolis is the best I’ve ever worked with, by far. They’re the most professional, the most astute. They like each other. They are on the same page. That was really important, so I could turn my back and look at St. Louis or Seattle and work with that team. I could go into that market and ask them “What do you think? What do we need to do? What’s going on?”.

Certainly I had access to all the numbers and the revenue models and the ratings and personnel. I could see where there might be some potential holes, because sometimes you’re so close to it, you can’t see it. Somebody from the outside may have a different look, but you have to ask them their opinion.

The key for me was being able to take what I knew in Minneapolis and try to help apply it without shoving it down anybody’s throat. I couldn’t go back to Madison and say “You know, in Minneapolis we do this”. They would look at someone that does that and say, “screw you”. When we did have the regional thing for a while, we had more assets in Minneapolis than Eau Claire. We had tickets to concerts, we had tickets to Viking games. We had the Vikings contract. We were able to help them with assets to build their business because we looked at it as one business unit, one enterprise. So we were able to help with our assets. At the same time, smaller markets sometimes do a lot of good blocking and tackling. And you can forget that in big markets.

Kevin LeGrett is one of my favorite people in the world. He runs L.A. for us, and we think a lot alike and have a lot of the same history. He came from Rochester, New York and Chillicothe, and some small markets. And when you get to L.A., there’s a lot of things you can just kind of not forget and implement that really still work in those big markets. That’s important too, to be able to come both ways and not just pontificate from up high.

DR: So when you are in Minneapolis, from a regional perspective, you helped launch 97.3 The Game in Milwaukee. I wonder how much you even let what KFAN is into your mind as a model for what you want The Game to be. While KFAN’s an iconic brand worth replicating, it’s also difficult to expect to catch lightning in a bottle and do that twice.

JT: I’ve had people call me over the years and say ‘how can we do what you’re doing at KFAN?’. You can’t. Gregg Swedberg, who is the head of programing for Minneapolis, was involved in KFAN from an AM to an FM to everything along the way. Chad Abbott is phenomenal as a programmer. They have both said it’s time and talent. They had talent in and it’s evolved over the years. The whole morning show started as interns.

So you find the right people and give it enough time. We’re so quick to pull the string on things that we think didn’t work. They gave this thing time. With talent, it emerges and it becomes very difficult to compete with. It becomes very ingrained in the city.

I think the magic of KFAN is the bit. Maybe you’ve seen that in some of the things about KFAN. When you first listen to it, you may not get the bit. You have to engage a while. Once you do and the talent carries the bit throughout the whole day, it shows sometimes that the talent don’t take themselves seriously, and sports can at times get in the way of what they’re talking about. Honestly, Dan Barreiro, I would trust him if the Twins won the World Series to handle it perfectly or what’s going on right now in the Twin Cities with the racial unrest and the violence against Blacks, he can handle both situations perfectly and that’s rare.                

Dan Barreiro photographed just before he went on the air at the KFAN studio in St. Louis Park.

So when we looked at The Game, our programmer (Tim Scott), I brought him into the company in Madison a while back, so he thinks like I do. I said, ‘you know, we can’t replicate KFAN, but we can replicate the concept’. Sports is great, but the average listener doesn’t need the box score. They’ve got their phone. They can get that in two seconds. They want opinion. They want you to reflect what’s going on. They want entertainment. Above all, it’s got to be entertaining! So we looked for guys like that. Steve Czaban was sitting there and he was having huge success across town with his appearances on Bob and Brian for many, many years. He was a logical jumping off point. Ever since then, we built the station with people that have more to say than just sports. Now we’ve got some statewide affiliates that carry much of our programing in Wisconsin, just as KFAN does in Minnesota. Everybody is looking for that same thing. A Wisconsin sports fan is not unlike a Minnesota sports fan. They just they just hate one another. 

DR: I guess that’s symptomatic of the entire Midwest. Because they also hate Illinois sports fans and Michigan sports.  

JT: Sure. I mean the beauty of KFAN is there’s this thing about Minnesota sports fans and it’s not meant to be derogatory, but over the years, they’ve had a lot of disappointment. No matter how good they are or how good they start off, they can start 5-0. The Minnesota sports fan says, “yeah, we’re good, but somewhere along the line, we’re going to F it up.” KFAN is their shoulder to cry on. The guys tend to sympathize with that and make it entertaining. And I think that’s part of it.

Wisconsin sports fans are near and dear. You could talk about the Packers every day. They bleed red and white for the Badgers. The Brewers are in there, too. The Bucks have become much more of a factor. More so in Milwaukee, where do adult males especially go to to be entertained? Outside of Bob and Brian on the Hog, it’s pretty thin. We’re trying to position ourselves as the group that can take those reins and also acquire other franchises, which we’re working on as well. 

DR: I want to ask you about the way sports fans are served in Milwaukee and Minneapolis. KFAN has faced challengers before, but heavy local sports radio competition isn’t available currently. Milwaukee meanwhile has two other sports stations. One airs on two signals (ESPN Milwaukee) and the other previously broadcast on two signals (The Fan). All of the local play-by-play, at least the pro teams, are on WTMJ, a news/talk station that has a major sports presence. Given your experience of working in both markets, is it a matter of Minneapolis being underserved from a local sports radio standpoint or is Milwaukee overserved? 

JT: I think Milwaukee might be a little overserved. I mean, just the the oversaturation of certain formats in Milwaukee made people jump to sports. I think there was some foreshadowing of how important content was going to be. You can have a great music station with with dynamic talent and see somebody come into the market and replicate that with a decent level of talent and move listeners in droves. It’s a commodity to them. A good sports talk brand, just like a good conservative news/talk station, somebody that’s got a real strong position in the market can be really tough to overcome.

WSSP tried it. When they went on AM and tried the FM translator, they did a nice job. Entercom at that point did a nice job, but I knew if we could get a 50,000 watt FM going, we’d put them in our rearview mirror. And that’s really where it is now. It’s between us and the other two. TMJ stays in place because of their history, that big stick, and they do have those franchises that impact dayparts and weekends. But I know those things can change.

In Minneapolis we’ve been approached by the other pro teams. That’s why we created KFAN Plus, and maybe that grows into something that’s a little more significant. But digital radio does level the playing field a little bit.

What is in place right now in Milwaukee may change and we just need to grow a platform that’s really receptive for it and appreciated by the consumer. We’ve got all the expertise. We are the the Badger flagship. We’ve run that Badger Sports Network since 1994. So we understand how that works. We know how to sell it, we know how to operate it. We know how to execute a network, so it’s just a matter of time. 

DR: That deal with the University of Wisconsin, is it something that iHeart worked out for all of its stations that made sense across the state? Or is it sort of divvied up by market? Because I would think the Badgers have way more brand value in Madison on a Monday morning in the fall than they do in Milwaukee. 

JT: When WTMJ had the Packers, Brewers, Bucks and Badgers, the Badgers were always the fourth stepchild. The University knew that was the case when I first talked to Barry Alvarez and Learfield. I had a good relationship there. I told them that we can make the Badgers more high profile in Milwaukee. There’s a lot of alumni in that city, but there’s also a lot of Marquette alumni. So it’s it’s a little bit of a battle. But on football Saturdays, there’s an awful lot of Badger fans there. We just need to reframe it and give it its own home. I think that’s helped a great deal.

Wisconsin football: Big Ten releases schedule; Badgers open at home vs.  Illinois | Football | journaltimes.com

The Learfield relationship, they look at every market individually, but we have a good long term relationship with them. The previous CEO, Greg Brown and I were really good friends and understood each other. They trusted me and what we did, and so that translated to Milwaukee eventually.

If we ever got control of a franchise ourselves, if we were say the flagship, yes, we would look at that team for our whole group together. That’s just the new world. In Minneapolis, all of our KFAN affiliates are Vikings affiliates as well. That’s because our relationship with the Vikings, and the kind of agreement we have with them. Same thing with the Wild. The joke between us is that we just never open the contract. You need something? We need something? You know, it’s got to be a partnership. I’ve had people ask me, are you own owned by the same company? And I tell them ‘no, we’re not, but you certainly we know it’s a partnership’. We have to create things that are wins for both sides or it won’t work.

When we did the last deal, we looked five years down the road. What’s this going to look like in five years? This is just a year ago with the Vikings. Software will change. The way the NFL distributes its content, social media’s impact, digital’s impact, it’s all going to change, and we have to be ready for that. So, the next few years are going to be interesting to see how those things play out. 

DR: Well, you talked about the future and the likelihood of change, so I want to circle back with you on Steve Czaban. As you mentioned before, he had equity in mornings in Milwaukee with Bob and Brian before you brought him over. He also had a daily afternoon show in DC, something he had been doing for years. Steve is still physically located in the nation’s capital and does the morning show remotely for the Game, but with his afternoon show no longer on 980 in DC, have you discussed with him what it would take for him to relocate to Wisconsin? 

Czaban returns to Milwaukee radio

JT: I think that’s going to stay between Steve and I. There’s some other factors that are involved in that first for him. So, I don’t want to speak about those. But absolutely, we’ve had a discussion, even originally reversing it where we looked at having him do the show from Milwaukee for DC. You’re aware of the changes that took place there. He doesn’t talk about a lot of it. He was just burned out. He’s really energized by the people around him in Milwaukee, some of the young talent we’ve got, John Kuhn, a former Packer, and Brian Butch, a former Badger. He’s excited about what we do with what we call “five wide” in the last hour of the show. He’s just he’s rejuvenated a little bit with what goes on at The Game.

The eventuality is yes, but how it happens and when it happens, there’s some timing things that have to be figured out. And we’re working on that, respectfully. 

DR: You have been with this company from Clear Channel to iHeartMedia and so on and so forth. Sitting in your seat, that day where you find out that the company is going to be rebranded and named after the streaming app and there’s going to be this bigger emphasis put on podcasting, did you have to reevaluate where broadcast radio stood in the company’s hierarchy? 

JT: Not really. I would hope you print this because I really, truly mean it. Bob Pittman is a brilliant man. You look at MTV or AOL, he has foreshadowed where things are going. To make that move nine, going on ten years ago to flip to iHeartRadio and iHeartMedia was brilliant. It really set in motion how we would be a catalyst for our advertisers, and for our listeners to stay at the forefront of what’s going on. Audio is being consumed in many different ways. To be out in front of that is exciting. Sometimes it’s clumsy. I mean, as a manager, when you’re leading and trying to push the change, you’re going to trip once in a while. Bob, to his credit, has always encouraged tripping as long as you learn from it and don’t make the same mistake again. He expects people to hit .500 at best.

To not take risks is to not change and not move on. I think the company is pushed the right way. It’s not like I’m drinking the Kool-Aid. I truly believe that. I remember being in airports eight years ago and asking people what they’re listening to, and it was “oh, I’m listening to my playlist”. Now, you know, it’s two out of three, “I listen to a podcast”. It’s personal listening.

It’s going to change the way Nielsen is doing things obviously. That’s a clumsy, outdated concept now. I think using iHeartRadio and saying to our advertisers, “we have all this information about the people that are registered users of iHeartRadio, we know as much about them as Facebook does,” well, it’s not a leap to say the people who are listening to broadcast radio are the same people. It’s because they can’t be in the same place at the same time. Qualitatively we can be a much better resource for people.

I’m amazed. It speaks to the dynamic again going back to KFAN. ‘The Power Trip’ morning show, between their show podcast, which is maybe a glean of their best two hours every morning, and their ‘After Party’, which is basically a half hour post show play by play, it gets a little crazy at times. Those two podcasts combine for almost two million downloads a month. That’s phenomenal. That’s New York level. All it says is that the consumer wants more of what they like. They just want it when they need it, when they want it, in their car or whenever they have time to listen. 

DR: Let’s end by looking at the industry in that way as opposed to just iHeart specifically. We have seen the news over and over again, that broadcasting revenue has been flat or down for a few years now. Obviously the pandemic made things even worse. How much of that do you feel is the result of advertiser or ad buyer misconception as opposed to listenership actually eroding? I’ve sat in multiple conferences and heard countless managers talk about having meetings with younger agency buyers who reject proposals simply because they don’t listen to broadcast radio and the friends their age don’t listen to broadcast radio. So they assume it has no value. 

Amazon Echo buying guide: How to choose the best Echo for you

JT: I think some of that is perception and yes, you’re right, that is something we do run into once in a while. That is a little bit of tunnel vision. I’ll give you two quick synopses here. First of all, time away from radio has always been challenged. In history, there were eight tracks, then cassette players were supposed to kill radio. Then it was CDs and your iPod and all the playlists you could create. All that podcasting did, it just replaced the time that was given to all the stuff that was away from radio. When people want to escape, that’s what they do. They go to a place where they can listen to something that is part of their world and their world only. All that we’ve done is allowed a new technology to take the lead in that area and become a factor. They still come back to radio for companionship and for information and entertainment. I think it’s more of a reporting thing, frankly, for the reasons I brought up about Nielsen. It’s hard to sample where people are truly listening these days, and so perception comes into that.

The other thing is when you talk to somebody about radio and they say ‘I don’t listen to radio anymore’, ask them where their radio is. You’ll hear “I’ve got a radio in my car”. Where else do you have a radio? Is there a clock radio at home? No. Do you have a boombox? No. Do you have an old fashioned tuner? No. Do you have a clock radio under your kitchen counter? No. What do you listen to? “I stream through Alexa.” Well, that’s radio. So shame on us for not trying to educate along the way, but that’s just perception. Then their perception becomes, somebody’s opinion, and that can generate its own legs, so to speak. 

Sign up for the BSM 8@8

The Top 8 Sports Media Stories of the Day, sent directly to your inbox, every morning at 8am ET.

Invalid email address
We promise not to spam you. You can unsubscribe at any time.

BSM Writers

The 2024 BSM Summit Was a Great Success But The Advertising Industry Needs to Step Up in 2025

“I’m calling on advertising professionals to step it up in 2025. This conference and room benefits you too.”

Jason Barrett

Published

on

The BSM Summit is in the books. I’m physically and mentally exhausted from it but that’s the price to pay to deliver a successful event. I want to thank all who attended, supported, and spoke at the show. We’ve done six of these conferences and they get better each year. I can always find things to improve but last week’s show was a great success. We now have to decide if we’ll head to Chicago, Las Vegas, Los Angeles or San Francisco in 2025. To vote, click here.

Before you ask, we recorded the entire show and will make all sessions available via on-demand. Those who were in NYC will receive a free login to the show. Those who didn’t attend and wish to see what they missed will be able to purchase on-demand tickets for $99.99. Once everything is ready, I’ll alert the masses.

Looking back, we had a strong mix of sessions. The Power Panel, Game Changers, Strictly Business, Riding The Revenue Train and Experts on the Digital Expressway all offered great insight on what executives are dealing with and where growth is coming from. We also had Annie Agar, Andrew Marchand, Damon Amendolara, Bonnie Bernstein, Maggie Gray, Kevin Clark, Dave Greene, Mike McVay and Bruce Gilbert host sessions, which kept the show fresh and interesting. Bringing together Nick Wright, Danny Parkins, Andrew Fillipponi and Damon Amendolara together was another highlight for the show.

I hosted a number of sessions too with some incredible industry titans. Caroline Beasley was excellent, offering honest feedback from the CEO’s chair. She was the first radio CEO to appear and speak at the BSM Summit. David Field, Bob Pittman, Mary Berner, Bill Wilson, Jennifer Witz and others, I’ll see you down the road.

Caroline explained why the radio business is viable despite what Bell Media said, however she reminded folks that the industry has been healthier. We’ve got to work to get back to that level. Her insights on how she manages Boston and Philadelphia differently, Beasley’s approach to diversity, the challenges with measurement, and the rise of artificial intelligence were all valuable. It was great talking business with someone as accomplished as Caroline.

I was also blessed to reconnect with John Skipper. We had a blast talking business in 2022 and this time was even better. Whether we got into Meadowlark Media’s progress, industry layoffs, the state of podcasting, the ESPN-FOX-WBD streaming deal or artificial intelligence, John was ready to share insightful answers. My favorite line though was when I asked him about AI. In classic John fashion he said, ‘I’m 68. By the time this takes off, hopefully someone else can deal with this shit.’ I know many who feel the same way.

Among the talent talks I hosted, Michael Kay and Peter Rosenberg were tremendous. Michael admitted that going through GM and PD changes has been hard, and the move away from the FM dial and Nielsen will take time to get used to. At the same time, he’s impressed with Good Karma Brands and wouldn’t have signed another contract with the company if he didn’t have complete trust in their people and approach. Given how many GKB folks were in the room, Michael could have given politically correct answers. Instead, he was honest. We need more of that. Playing it safe doesn’t address issues. Honest dialogue does.

Last but certainly not least, Stephen A. Smith and Paul Heyman were simply outstanding. I’ll start with Stephen A.. I’ve been looking to sit down and chat with him at the Summit for six years. The timing worked out, and I’m glad it did. He was electric. Having Stephen A. and Paul cross paths backstage too was great. The tweet they put out blew up.

Before going on stage with Stephen A., I was ready to do 35-minutes. I know he has a ton on his plate, so I didn’t want to abuse his time. As we’re heading out, he says ‘Let’s do 45. I’m good with 45.’ I said, ’45 it is’. We took the stage, discussed his schedule and prep, knowing when First Take needs to pivot, the rise of his digital show, his future plans, management diversity, etc., and as I’m about to wrap with questions, he says ‘I’ve got time for 3 more questions.’ An hour later, we end day one. That was awesome. It’s easy to see why he’s the best in the game.

What a treat it was to have Paul Heyman with us. His insight on creating promos, and writing shows as both a leader and underdog were outstanding. Even better was his feedback on the Tribal Chief character of Roman Reigns being born from Marlon Brando’s Apocalypse Now. I could’ve talked business with Paul for another hour. He also promoted his appearance prior to the Summit, sharing posts with millions of followers and getting the WWE behind it. I never expect that but when it happens, it says a lot about an individual. The WWE has to get ‘The Wiseman’ at more industry conferences. He gets the business and makes the room smarter.

The session I received the best feedback on that wasn’t tied to stars was ‘Making Sports Radio Work on YouTube‘. Make sure to read Dave Greene’s column today about it. I knew the session was going to be a hit as soon as I saw Phil Mackey and Matt Moscona’s slides. They did a great job showing what does and doesn’t work on YouTube and how to monetize the platform. When I said last month that the mid-market voters screwed up leaving Moscona off the BSM Top 20 PD list, this was why. What these guys are doing in Minneapolis and Baton Rouge should be paid attention to. They’re crushing it and doing so without a large corporate push.

Another session that was popular was ‘Secrets to Social Success‘. Annie Agar, Omar Raja, Steve Braband and Josh Fendrick know the social space and were excellent sharing thoughts on how to create impact on specific platforms. I also love how the session ended with Logan Swaim of The Volume asking the group to draft their top 2 platforms from a group of X, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube. The one surprise, no one picked Facebook.

This Summit had stronger attendance from GM’s than ever before, almost 300 total people registered, and a ton of different companies were in attendance. One of those groups, Good Karma Brands continues to impress me by how they use the event to unite their teams and use the gathering to make their local markets better. I was thrilled to be back at the Ailey Theater, the home of our 2020 show. The stage and screen are huge, and the seating is great. The only challenge was getting people back into the room after they flocked to the hallway to network.

There was though one thing missing at the Summit that I want to see change in the future; stronger representation from the advertising industry.

This conference isn’t just for radio hosts and program directors. It’s for everyone and anyone who works in the media business. We explore ways to make money, grow audience, deliver impact for partners, examine and excel on new platforms, and explore new technology and key changes affecting the media business. These are relevant issues for advertisers/media buyers not just content creators/managers. I tried to offer tickets and speaking opportunities to get media buyers and marketers involved and the response was light. I’m calling on advertising professionals to step it up in 2025. This conference and room benefits you too.

As I drove home with my son, Dylan, he asked ‘how do you even come close to matching this one? Is there anyone left?’ Without hesitating I said, ‘Did you see Dave Portnoy there? Big Cat and PFT? Bill Simmons? Joe Buck? Troy Aikman? Mr. Beast? Mark Cuban? Jim Nantz? Dan Le Batard? David Berson? Adam Silver? Elon Musk? Jeff Bezos? Mark Zuckerberg? Daniel Ek? Tim Cook? The Kelce Brothers? Peyton & Eli? Shaq? Charles Barkley? Bob Costas? Dan Patrick? Gary Vee? He looked at me, cracked a smile and said, ‘I guess there’s always more you can do.’

My next challenge, building the 2024 BNM Summit in Washington D.C. this September. Thanks again to everyone who made time to join us, speak and sponsor the show. It really means a lot.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Thumbs Up:

Andrew Salciunas: It’s great to see 97.5 The Fanatic giving ‘Choonis’ a bigger opportunity. Andrew did a nice job alongside Anthony Gargano, he was ready to be elevated, and he’s respected by the local competition. Adding him to mornings with John Kincade gives the morning show new energy while adding a new wrinkle to middays. WIP remains the dominant brand in Philadelphia, and these moves don’t guarantee anything changing. However, putting a talented broadcaster with a bright future in a bigger role is a good start.

The Kelce Brothers and Shannon Sharpe: The iHeart Podcast Awards took place last week and two award winners couldn’t have been more deserving. The Kelce Brothers earned the honor for podcast of the year. Shannon Sharpe won Sports Podcast of the Year for his show Club Shay Shay. The Kelce’s and Shannon are blowing up in the digital audio space. iHeart nailed it with these two recipients. Congrats to both. The more they each succeed, the more it’s going to make the athlete creator economy an even bigger part of sports media’s future.

Travis Hancock: Mark Baker from Gastonia, NC is a dedicated listener of WFNZ in Charlotte. The longtime caller and Charlotte sports radio consumer has been in a hospital battling serious health issues which have included needing surgery for a stomach problem, treatment for a heart condition to survive the surgery, and a large, cancerous tumor that could end his life soon.

Rather than offering prayers and hoping for the best, Travis has called on the Charlotte sports community to offer encouragement to lift Mark’s spirits. Tons of current and former Panthers, Hornets, and media personalities have shared uplifting messages for Mr. Baker. One scroll through his feed on X and you’ll see tons of messages from Greg Olsen, Paul Finebaum, Luke Kuechly and many others.

Mark from Gastonia’s road ahead remains unclear. Travis is doing his part to provide words of encouragement to help him get through the day, and raising awareness of his GoFundMe to help cover medical expenses. Here’s to hoping Mark recovers and is able to listen to and call his favorite sports radio station, WFNZ, one more time.

Thumbs Down:

Deadspin: The brand was sold last week by Gizmodo Media Group to a European firm, which plans to take a different approach to content. Deadspin was once a take-no-prisoners brand, stepping on anyone and everyone in their way. But those who fueled that fire to make the brand respected and feared departed. The crew that followed had some of that venom but not as much. Crushing people and reputations may generate attention but eventually flames burn out. When the ones responsible for financing chaos pull the plug, it’s harder to find others hungry to do business with those who made a living trying to take them down.

Diversity Zealots: For 8 years, I’ve written columns about sports media’s diversity challenges. I believe the industry can be better in this area especially in management. It’s a subject I’ve put focus on at Summit’s in three different cities with multiple executives including our latest in NYC. In fact, Jeff Rickard remarked last week how this year’s event had the strongest female representation we’ve ever had, something I’m proud of because we’ve worked hard on it.

More importantly, I continue to help women, and Black and Hispanic professionals get hired in key roles in sports media. Yet there are uninformed people in our business and some who are now on the outside looking in who like to flock to social media when the diversity issue comes up or when they see a poster or panel about our show promoting white people involved in it.

First, rather than running your mouth and sounding stupid, how about doing your homework? A simple look at the show schedule would’ve shown you there were a lot of women taking part. Secondly, how about actually making a difference yourself? Who have you hired? Who have you featured on stage at an industry event or welcomed on to your show to explore the issue further? What exactly are you doing to make things better in the industry besides sitting behind a computer complaining on X or Facebook? It’s easy to spew nonsense but harder to actually solve problems. Stop talking, start doing.

Sign up for the BSM 8@8

The Top 8 Sports Media Stories of the Day, sent directly to your inbox, every morning at 8am ET.

Invalid email address
We promise not to spam you. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Continue Reading

BSM Writers

Stephen A. Smith & Paul Heyman Were Headliners; Phil Mackey & Matt Moscona Steal Headlines

Based on the response most everyone I talked to had about this session, this was the “light bulb moment” for most during the Summit.

Published

on

Coming in to the 2024 BSM Summit in New York it was clear who the headliners were going to be. WWE’s Paul Heyman and ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith hit it out of the park with their sessions on Wednesday afternoon. I could listen to the two of them speak for hours.

The way Heyman described feeling a crowd and where to take a promo. The connection you have to have with an audience and the way he can make everyone in a large arena and the millions watching on television feel like he is talking to them, individually. He truly is one of the best television characters of all time.

Stephen A. and his passion for what he does is incredible. Love him or hate him, you watch him, and you are interested in what he has to say. His delivery is part of what makes him so special and on this day, he really captured the room as he talked a lot about what he still feels he wants and needs to do in this business. His confidence and his work ethic can never be questioned.

The keynote conversations with Caroline Beasley and John Skipper were both excellent and Skipper may have had the thought of the week when he said, regarding Artificial Intelligence, “It’s going to create a lot of disruption. I’m still more fond of intelligence that walks with two legs. I am 68 and thinking maybe I can get through life without this sh**”

However, it was the session that came about 35 minutes after Skipper’s conversation with Barrett Media president Jason Barrett, which stole the headlines. This is where SKOR Noth’s Phil Mackey and Matt Moscona of 104.5 ESPN in Baton Rouge did a panel entitled, Making Sports Radio Work on YouTube.

Based on the response most everyone I talked to had about this session, this was the “light bulb moment” for most during the Summit. I know everyone that was in that room to hear the session took something they could use immediately back to their stations, if they were someone who is in a market without a video/YouTube strategy or even for those that already do.

Now, there is a couple of things to dissect here. The first thing is for those without a video/YouTube strategy in 2024, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!? This has been my biggest pet peeve for a long time in that the industry is so slow to react rather than step up and be the leader. You have the content, you have the audience, you have the talent, the talent has the relationships and trust with the audience. Meanwhile, digital content creators came along and built better, stronger relationships with audiences with attribution right on the screen and took millions and millions of dollars in advertising along the way. Then, and only then, did most respond and by then it was too late and it was time to play catch up.

Sorry, that just needed to be said. Don’t even get me started on Podcasting and the missed opportunities there.

I digress. This is why the BSM Summit is held, to share ideas and to learn new things you can implement.

What Phil and Matt did in this panel was break it down very simply. Phil shared five things they have learned since launching on YouTube which included: producing for YouTube, knowing “niches get the riches,” using SEO-friendly headlines, having great thumbnails, and using product placement which has great value for local direct advertisers.

Matt laid out two things very clearly that can make a gigantic difference when it comes to YouTube. The first being a great thumbnail and the other being a great title. He pointed out that YouTube is a search engine, and it is second only to Google in that regard. Therefore, you must think about what your audience is searching for when they are using the platform.

This session was equal parts valuable information and presented in a very simple way for folks to understand and take back for their teams to implement. Many of you will be having YouTube strategy meetings soon (trust me) and my suggestion to you is to do a couple of things. First, if you were not at the BSM Summit I know a replay opportunity will be out soon for you to view on-demand. I highly suggest you do so, not just for this session, but if you do not have a video strategy, this is 35 minutes you need to see.

Secondly, Matt Moscona noted in the presentation that they spent time looking at what the best stations around the country were doing and other digital outlets and how they looked and how they engaged with the audiences, etc. This is important because you should be doing the same thing. So many others have tried, adjusted, tried again, pivoted, tried again and you have the luxury of going to YouTube.com today and seeing where they landed. That would be a suggestion for a first step, go take a look and see what can be done, relatively inexpensively, to create an entirely new revenue stream and the best way possible to engage with and super-serve your audience.

I would highly suggest you start by taking a look at what Phil Mackey and his team at SKOR North are doing as well as what Matt Moscona and his team at 104.5 ESPN in Baton Rouge are doing.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________

The Best Thing I Heard This Week

Being in New York most of the week, I wasn’t able to listen to or watch much sports programming. However, I did spend time with several of the brightest minds in our industry. The best thing I heard this week was the amount of positivity around sports radio, sports television and digital sports coverage and conversation.

Yes, there are problems. Oy, are there problems. But there is so much to be looking forward to in this space.

I talked with several young content creators at the BSM Summit, and it was energizing. It was great to hear their enthusiasm for what is going on and I think, frankly, a lot of that has to do with the new companies that have come into the space. These people didn’t spend time in a tired, old radio or television environment where they are content trying to teach old dog’s new tricks. They are working for forward-thinking companies who are allowing them the space, time and resources to create.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

In Case You Missed It

On Friday morning as I was traveling back from New York, I had the chance to read a terrific piece from John Molori, Sports Media is in its Golden Age for Women. John’s column centers on just a few of the women who are succeeding, big time, in sports media today. John highlights Erin Andrews, Pam Oliver, Hannah Storm and Cari Champion while mentioning several others. I am sure John felt like he could go on and on with this column.

John writes, “March is Women’s History Month, and at no time in the history of television have there been more talented and capable women in the sports media field. Viewers are blessed to enjoy the work of time-tested and experienced personalities, and equally fortunate to see an endless stream of young and driven women who want to make a mark in the industry.

“The once male-dominated field has been plowed down like the cornfield in Field of Dreams. In its place is a wide-open and diverse roster of broadcasters whose gifts transcend any gender labels.”

You can read John’s full column by clicking here.

Sign up for the BSM 8@8

The Top 8 Sports Media Stories of the Day, sent directly to your inbox, every morning at 8am ET.

Invalid email address
We promise not to spam you. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Continue Reading

BSM Writers

Field Yates Goes Beyond the Numbers for ESPN NFL Coverage

“No day feels like work for me, and it’s something that has allowed me to meet some incredible people along the way.”

Derek Futterman

Published

on

Field Yates
Courtesy: The Measure

With just over one month to go until the 2024 NFL Draft, Field Yates is entering the final stages of his year-round preparation process. Amid an NFL season that concluded with a thrilling Super Bowl resulting in a second-consecutive championship for the Kansas City Chiefs, Yates was balancing real-time coverage with shrewd prognostication and evaluation of the next generation of stars. There has been anticipation regarding who the Chicago Bears will select with the first-overall draft pick and the other franchises thereafter to welcome a new class to the league. For this draft alone, Yates has compiled projections for 322 players that has involved meticulous film study, analyzing quantitative data and interviews with the athletes and their surrounding personnel.

As an NFL insider for ESPN, Yates consistently remains in the know on all things pertaining to the game of football. The new league year begins just after the Super Bowl, and he ensures to enter its confines ready to tackle free agency and the NFL Draft before offseason workouts lead to training camp.

During the season, Yates is in conversation with relevant sources from around the NFL to gather information about additional qualitative considerations that could impact the draft position of a player. He periodically authors mock drafts in articles that outline how he believes the three-day event will play out as well. While Yates and other NFL insiders help fans become more informed and engaged with tentpole events throughout the season, there is a different kind of ambiguity surrounding the NFL Draft that can lead to unexpected outcomes.

“I compare it to studying for – not that I ever took this – but I would say it feels like studying for the LSAT,” Yates explained. “You could study every hour of every day, but ultimately once the actual event begins, there’s specific problems that you have to solve; or in the case of the Draft, I’m going to study more players than are actually drafted, and I’m going to have players in my mind going in certain ranges.”

There are unpredictable occurrences that take place over the course of the NFL and collegiate seasons with the potential to alter the overall draft order. For example, Yates emphasized that most people did not expect LSU quarterback Jayden Daniels to project as a top-five selection entering the season. Yet after a breakout year in which Daniels led college football in quarterback rating and threw for 40 touchdowns and 3,812 yards, he caught the attention of several teams in the early first round.

“He had a remarkable season, so there is this balancing act of sort of taking all the information you had going into a year, but making sure you’re not married to it,” Yates said. “You’ve got to be mindful of how things can change once the season begins, and you sort of have to adjust your board accordingly.”

More than 54 million fans watched last year’s NFL Draft with an average audience equating to 6 million consumers per day. The average viewership figure was up 12% year-over-year, which was a harbinger of things to come for the league’s regular season and playoff slate of games.

Yates was involved in this coverage throughout the year, which included television hosting and analysis, two original podcasts, writing and reporting. Although his endeavors in these media center around football, he brings a different approach as to how he presents the information, imagining the cluster of platforms as if it were an accordion. Writing provides Yates the ability to start and stop, whereas his radio appearances generally last eight to 15 minutes and lead to real-time dissemination of his findings and opinions.

“I always think about every topic through a couple of different prisms, but generally speaking if you have one initial thought that comes to mind, you better have that one ready for TV,” Yates said, “because in TV, sometimes you get 30 seconds on a topic and sometimes you get more, but you better be prepared to have a truncated answer on TV because it’s the one medium where you have this finite period of time that is usually just one show window.”

During the previous summer, Yates hosted ESPN’s daily studio program, NFL Live, while Laura Rutledge was on maternity leave. Being able to fill in for Rutledge, someone who Yates considers a close friend and as good a host in all of television, was a task for which he was honored to take on. While he generally displays his football acumen on this program in a contributing role outside of its main cast, he suddenly found himself responsible for setting up the deep roster of analysts and also delivering his own opinions over the course of a show.

NFL Live is one of those shows that when I was there, my mindset was, ‘Let the stars of the show do their thing,’” Yates said. “As far as the analysis role, we weren’t as reactionary to the news of yesterday because there weren’t that many games that you’re reacting to.”

Before he started covering football on a regular basis, Yates was a tight end and linebacker for his high school football team and was named to the All-Independent School League. From there, he attended Wesleyan University where he played on the football and lacrosse teams while majoring in psychology. For parts of high school and college, Yates interned with the New England Patriots and ultimately narrowed his focus to coaching and scouting, ultimately trying to prove his worth to remain in the NFL. In the end, he was hired by the Kansas City Chiefs as a member of its scouting and coaching department where he spent games in the coaching box and eventually helped chart defensive plays.

Experience working in the NFL is not a necessary prerequisite in order to serve as an effective analyst or commentator, Yates affirmed, but he is cognizant of the fact that it did give him an inherent advantage to decipher nuances of the sport. In fact, he refers to his time in the league as his “football Rosetta Stone,” carving a stele from which he decodes different facets of the sport.

“It allowed me to understand a little bit deeper some of the things that I probably was aware of but was able to kind of crystallize,” Yates said, “like what specifically I was looking for in players and kind of what went into the process of scouting a player at a very, very, very basic level, sort of understanding what went into a game plan.”

Yates enjoyed his work at the NFL level, but he quickly realized that the outline of events made it difficult to attend events such as weddings and his five-year high school reunion. He was making sacrifices to work in football, and while he knows that he may have felt differently about it at another time in his life, he began to ponder over making a change.

“It’s a schedule that does not work around you; you work around it, and I just sort of felt like there was a little bit more balance for me out there in the world of sports media, which all these years later I feel validated in saying,” Yates conveyed, “because while I absolutely 100% love everything that goes into the scouting process in so many ways, I do have some balance in my life that I’m not sure would have been afforded if I stayed in that world of scouting.”

After moving on from his job in football, Yates earned his real-estate license and thought that the field would serve him better in a career. Six months later though, he felt a yearning for sports and was looking to find a way back into the industry in a role that would better serve his aspirations.

Once he realized that sports media could prove to be optimal, he began sending emails to Mike Reiss, an NFL reporter for ESPN who covers the New England Patriots that became a mentor who accepted him early on in the business. After freelance writing for several football blogs and websites, he was hired by ESPN and worked on its Boston coverage, covering his first NFL Draft at the age of 24 from Gillette Stadium.

“I kind of point to that to where it sort of began,” Yates said. “It was the first opportunity for me to be inside of a professional media setting amongst a bunch of people that I either had grown up reading or had followed on social media; things of that nature. Mike really kind of helped me get my first sort of stepping stone into the world of sports media.”

When he was working in Boston, Yates was the co-host of two ESPN Radio shows centered around football while also writing articles for the outlet’s official website. He gradually made the transition towards covering the league nationally and started to contribute to both NFL coverage and fantasy football content.

Seth Markman, who serves as a vice president of production for ESPN, assisted Yates in understanding the means of comparison and contrast within the dichotomy of these two subject matters. As a result, he discerned what aspects of the sport were applicable between these focuses and began to further excel in his work. Before he was named the host of Fantasy Football Now, Yates was an NFL insider on the show and would cogently fuse these two areas together.

“I can’t say that every single thing that I learned in scouting I have used to this day in fantasy football, but there’s definitely a lot of stuff that I feel has been useful when you’re trying to evaluate sort of the real or not real nature of player performance,” Yates said. “A guy has a monster game in Week 1 and you’re sitting there wondering, ‘Alright, I haven’t really thought about this player that much,’ or, ‘I hadn’t really thought about this player that much. What do we see in this player and how real is or is it not?’”

Yates monitors metrics in real time on Sunday afternoons when he is situated in the ESPN War Room watching games around the league with his colleagues. Located within the network’s Bristol headquarters, he views the action alongside Chris Berman, Adam Schefter and other ESPN personalities, monitoring the latest developments and building camaraderie.

Over the years in the War Room, Yates has vivid memories watching games with ESPN NFL reporter Chris Mortensen, who worked at the network for over three decades. Mortensen stepped down from ESPN last April, but throughout his time at the network he built relationships with his colleagues and was always accessible to them. Earlier this month, Mortensen passed away at the age of 72, news that saddened his colleagues, competitors and sports fans around the world.

“I remember whenever I talked to Mort on the phone, it was always a lot longer than I anticipated or he anticipated it might be, so a call that began with a text that said, ‘Hey, do you have a couple of minutes to catch up?,’ usually turned into about an hour or so,” Yates recalled. “We already do miss Mort a lot, and I think it’s going to feel that much different in the fall on Sundays.”

Although ESPN no longer airs Fantasy Football Now, he continues to share his insights regarding the space on several ESPN television programs and the Fantasy Focus Football podcast. Yates co-hosts the audio offering with Daniel Dopp, Mike Clay and Stephania Bell, all of whom bring unique concentrations to the air that help create a compelling, engaging final product. There are a plethora of outlets producing fantasy football content, but Yates believes that the rapport between the on-air talent ultimately sets them apart.

“If Christian McCaffrey has four touchdowns on Sunday, we’re going to talk about it on Monday, and probably every other podcast will as well,” Yates hypothesized. “What’s going to hopefully make us different is the entertainment value and the camaraderie and the chemistry that makes you say, ‘Yeah, I know I can hear about Christian McCaffrey anywhere, but I really want to hear from the Fantasy Focus crew.’”

With the NFL Draft rapidly approaching, Yates is continuing to extrapolate his insights in that niche of coverage on the twice-weekly First Draft podcast with ESPN senior NFL Draft analyst Mel Kiper Jr. The show allows them to deliberate topics at length, satiating the appetite for more detail and protracted discussion for those looking for such content. These podcasts, along with his radio appearances, television responsibilities and the written word, excite Yates and keep him enthused about football coverage going forward.

“While I feel like we have near around-the-clock coverage for football, I just feel like we’re going to have even more and more and more going forward,” Yates said. “The digital space is so great, but it’s an opportunity for all of us to continue to grow, and that league has become must-see TV, 365 days a year.”

From the moment Yates arrived at ESPN, he immediately felt welcomed by people at the company who emitted a sense of gratitude and thoughtfulness. Looking back, he acknowledges that they could have told him to “go kick rocks,” but they did the opposite instead and forged meaningful relationships that have helped enhance the quality and breadth of programming.

With the whirlwind of free agency slowly winding down, Yates is beginning to see the illuminating lights of the NFL Draft stage glowing in downtown Detroit. The filled-in draft board will resemble an answer key of sorts for Yates to review before he moves on to studying the next iteration of the event. Through it all, he will watch as the league receives a new class of budding stars looking to contribute to teams around the league as they work to realize championship aspirations.

“I find pure joy in being a part of the ESPN family and covering football like I do,” Yates said. “No day feels like work for me, and it’s something that has allowed me to meet some incredible people along the way. I’ve been at ESPN for over a decade now, and I feel real camaraderie and feel a real loyalty and bond at the company, and that to me is motivation enough to want to continue to do it for a long, long time.”

Sign up for the BSM 8@8

The Top 8 Sports Media Stories of the Day, sent directly to your inbox, every morning at 8am ET.

Invalid email address
We promise not to spam you. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Continue Reading
Advertisement

Advertisement

Upcoming Events

Barrett Media Writers

Copyright © 2024 Barrett Media.