BSM Writers
Rodgers Hijacks The Draft And Douses A Dreamy Night
Dropping a poison pill on the NFL’s annual showcase, the superstar QB publicly demands a trade and takes over a show that should have belonged to Trevor Lawrence, Trey Lance and the next class of stars.
Published
3 years agoon
By
Jay MariottiSuddenly, almost suspiciously, the NFL Draft transformed into “Jeopardy!” With one strategic leak to ESPN, which not only was producing its own reality TV show but feeding it with ratings steroids, it no longer mattered as much that Trevor Lawrence doesn’t live to play football.
Or whether the 49ers were intentionally sparking prop-bet fever, in a league that now embraces gambling, by playing hide-and-seek with the No. 3 pick. And why they’d better be right, with a quarterback lineage of Montana and Young, in taking a tearful Trey Lance, who has played one mid-level college game since 2019 and couldn’t possibly have found that bow tie in North Dakota.
Or if Justin Fields was a victim of rival-agent sabotage as he slid to No. 11, where the Chicago Bears — whose all-time-best quarterback, Sid Luckman, played in a leather helmet — traded up so Fields can play in Soldier Field and lather a bitter fan base with more boom-or-bust hope. Or if the jewelry store that outfitted Mac Jones’ girlfriend thought her beau was going way earlier than No. 15, to New England, where he instantly inherits Bill Belichick’s wrath and becomes the Poor Dude Always Compared To Tom Brady.
“God’s good,” Jones said.
Is he sure?
All of which became infinitely less important Thursday night than a bigger game show.
The Category: Disgruntled Superstar Athletes.
The Question: Which NFL quarterback, hours before the Draft, went public with a trade demand and said he won’t return to his current team?
The Answer: Who is Aaron Rodgers?
This was the wiliest man in the sport, hijacking the opening night of the draft and the rest of the weekend by injecting the drug that intoxicates fans and media — yet, ever so troublingly, also poisons American sports in the 21st century. That would be the get-me-out-of-here pill. Once and for all, after a year of dropping cryptic hints, Rodgers let it be known definitively that he wants out of Green Bay. He made the news public when the Packers refused on Draft eve to deal with the 49ers, the first team on his wish list. During his successful two-week run as guest host of his favorite game show, I wondered if his public stumping for Alex Trebek’s gig was an indicator that he wouldn’t return to the Packers.
Now they’ve heard Rodgers, loud and clear, to the point team president Mark Murphy, general manager Brian Gutekunst and head coach Matt LaFleur have made several trips West to hear his concerns. Obviously, their efforts didn’t impress Rodgers, and if they are wise men, they will ship him soon to the suitor with the best offer. They prefer not to deal him to an NFC franchise, but also are on Rodgers’ list are the Broncos and Raiders. And when Denver chose cornerback Patrick Surtain II, it opened the possibility of Rodgers finishing his career at high altitude as Peyton Manning did. Oh, and did we mention that his fiancee, actress Shailene Woodley, lives in nearby Boulder? The Raiders claim they don’t have the money to pull off the deal, but they would if Derek Carr is sent to Green Bay.
Where he goes, who knows? If he doesn’t like the deal, he could retire and host “Jeopardy!” What we do know is Rodgers, like the NBA power freaks who started this pre-agency madness, won’t be completing his career with one team — just as Brett Favre, his predecessor, was shipped away. And much as these mega-stories excite America’s sports fandom — and Vegas, which, of course, has established odds on his destination — it isn’t healthy when a night designed for young men’s dreams becomes a leverage device for a future Hall of Famer who never is happy.
Dismiss anything the Packers say, such as Gutekunst’s comment to ESPN that there’s “zero chance” of a deal: “As we’ve stated since the season ended, we are committed to Aaron in 2021 and beyond. Aaron has been a vital part of our success and we look forward to competing for another championship with him leading our team.” They don’t have the power here. He does. At least the Seahawks put an end to reports they’ll trade Russell Wilson, who apparently is content in Seattle for now. But with the prospect looming of a civil settlement between Deshaun Watson and the 22 women who’ve accused him of sexual misconduct, there’s a chance some godforsaken team will take a gamble on him, baggage and all, adding more drama to an offseason that never ends.
The three networks that broadcast the Draft, with hosting styles ranging from Mike Greenberg’s fanboyism on ESPN to RIch Eisen’s professionalism on the NFL Network, did their best to focus on the picks. That is, once the league got around to starting the festivities. It was 8:25 p.m. Eastern time, in a distressed country that doesn’t have patience to wait around for showtime, when Kings Of Leon — where have they been since “Sex On Fire” blew up? — finally stopped playing in the rain. This was long after Roger Goodell had implored the people of northeast Ohio, some actually wearing masks, to boo him louder than they already were.
“Come on. Come on, Cleveland!” the commissioner shouted. “I didn’t come out of my basement for nothing! Come on!”
When the booing subsided, Mel Kiper Jr. uttered the most dreaded word in the Lawrence household: “Generational.” Before taking his first snap for a Jaguars team that has gone 39-105 since 2012, he already is being compared with Manning, John Elway and Andrew Luck in the “can’t miss” pantheon. I might agree if three of the eight quarterbacks drafted first overall since 2010 weren’t named Jameis Winston, Sam Bradford, Jared Goff; and two of them, Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray, aren’t near the league elite. They are looking for a savior in Jacksonville, not only for the franchise but the city itself, and who’s to say Urban Meyer, an NFL rookie himself, is the right mentor?
“I’m just pumped. The best is yet to come,” Lawrence said. “I don’t know what the point is if you don’t expect to win every week. I’m going to bring the same mindset. … I’m super excited to be coming to Jacksonville.”
Is he sure?
Zach Wilson looks like a boy-band member. He’s from a small Utah town, Draper, and now he’s off to Don Draper’s city. “Is this the savior Jets fans have been searching for since Broadway Joe Namath?” Eisen said before popping one of the night’s clever puns: “Zach’s Fifth Avenue.” His highlights at BYU are magical, with dazzling throws and Mahomes-like arm angles, but New York will devour him if he’s another Sam Darnold or Daniel Jones. “I’ve heard from multiple sources how talented this team is, but maybe the pieces didn’t align,” Wilson said. “I’m just so excited to get in there and figure out what we can do to make it better.”
Is he sure?
Then came Lance, who wore sunglasses at night. Depending on your view, he’s either one of the great stories in Draft history — ignored by major college programs, unearthed from North Dakota State — or one of the riskiest reaches. First, what happened with the Rodgers talks? “We inquired and it was a quick end to the conversation. It wasn’t happening,” 49ers general manager John Lynch said. “We’ve been excited (about Lance) for a long, long time. So we went right back to where we’ve been. That’s really excited about adding Trey Lance to the 49ers, and we’re thrilled about that.”
Niners coach Kyle Shanahan is viewed as a young genius, but he has left himself vulnerable after swinging and missing on a Rodgers deal, relinquishing a draft bundle to take Lance and angering incumbent Jimmy Garoppolo, who seethed when Shanahan sarcastically wouldn’t guarantee him a roster spot. Shanahan says he regrets the remark and wants Garoppolo on the roster, but Lance, a dual-threat operator in the mold of Patrick Mahomes and Watson, is the franchise now. And with Fields in Chicago and Jones in New England, the chances of trading Garoppolo are slimmer.
“Now we made this move, so it’s obvious what I hope and believe with this guy coming in,” Shanahan said of Lance. “But it would be a very tough situation if Jimmy is not on our team. I want Jimmy to be here. I want this kid to be brought along. I want to see how he does. And if it turns into a competition, it turns into a competition. I would be excited about that if he showed he was ready for it and stuff. But we know where Jimmy is at.”
A little loopy, Shanahan was so secretive about the Lance pick that he told few in the organization, including coaches and scouts. Only Lynch knew the truth when half the football world thought he was taking Jones. When he’s picking No. 3, and Lawrence and Wilson are locks at Nos. 1 and 2, why play spy games? “We have been very high on Trey since the very beginning, since Day One. Yes, the person everyone else is speculating about, we liked him, too,” said Shanahan, referring to Jones. “To go through this whole process where no one has known how John and I feel and felt this whole time, we do that because you don’t want to sway people in this building. You want everyone to work their butts off and give you their honest info. That’s why we don’t share at all how we felt.”
If that’s not curious, consider where Lance has been hanging out lately: at the southern California home of Colin Cowherd, whose 20-year-old daughter, Liv, has an Instagram-related friendship with Lance. “I think it’s the right pick,” Cowherd said. “I think he’s a bigger, stronger athlete than Mac Jones.”
Said Lance: “It was awesome getting to know coach Shanahan a little bit. He’s an awesome dude.”
Is he sure?
Somewhere in his home state of Georgia, Fields wasn’t pleased to slip out of the top 10. He and his family members actually departed their living room, leaving the TV shot with furniture and no humans. The pre-draft hatchet jobs had done damage, from a claim by ESPN’s Dan Orlovsky that Fields had work-ethic issues to insensitive comments about his epileptic condition. By night’s end, he seemed over the slight, though he’s joining a franchise where QBs go to die — and where the future of general manager Ryan Pace and head coach Matt Nagy depends on his rapid development.
“Blessed,” Fields tweeted about his new home.
Is he sure?
But by Friday, the talk shows will be all over Aaron Rodgers. Goodell can’t be thrilled about it, but with the league never more robust after completion of a new collective bargaining agreement and $113 billion in fresh broadcast money, he played the role of too-big-to-care diplomat. “I think that’s just where we are in the world,” Goodell said. “Our players, I have so much respect for them. They do have strong views. I want to hear that. It’s part of what we’re embracing here.”
He did make a fool of himself in an interview with Greenberg, saying he could do no COVID-related harm in resuming his traditional on-stage hugs with players. Last year, you’ll recall, Goodell conducted the Draft out of his home — in a recliner the league brought to Cleveland, where a different fan sat on stage as his or her team made a pick. “I’m vaccinated. There’s no concern for me or them,” the commissioner said. Just last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said vaccinated people still have a small chance of contracting the coronavirus and spreading it to others.
But what does he care? Goodell will be remembered as the most successful commissioner, albeit polarizing, in U.S. history. As the rest of the sports world wobbles, the NFL is marketing 2021 as “THE BIGGEST SEASON EVER.” The frenzy only heightens when one of the greatest players ever demands a trade. So much for the baseball season. So much for the NBA playoffs.
And so much for the NFL Draft.
Jay Mariotti, called “the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes a weekly media column for Barrett Sports Media and regular sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts in production today. He’s an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and radio talk host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects. Compensation for this column is donated to the Chicago Sun-Times Charity Trust.
BSM Writers
The NBA Play-In Tournament is Simply About Money
By most estimates, the PIT has added millions of dollars in value for the league’s broadcast partners.
Published
19 hours agoon
April 17, 2024No, the NBA play-in tournament won’t save the league. But that’s not the same as saying it doesn’t matter.
In truth, the PIT, as we’ll call it, has done almost exactly what the league’s owners had hoped it would. It drives up a little interest in the NBA’s product before the playoffs proper begin this weekend. It’s sort of an appetizer for the courses to come.
It also drives a few bucks into the pockets of the league’s broadcast partners, and for Adam Silver & Co., that’s the point, of course. Aesthetics aside, if the PIT wasn’t a moneymaker, we’d never speak of it again, very happily.
This creature, after all, is a bit of a mess. It’s clearly contrived. It was hatched during the pandemic as the NBA tried to figure out how to survive its 2020 bubble summer, which tells you most of what you need to know about the motives.
And it can skew ugly. This week’s offerings featured two solidly sub-.500 Eastern Conference teams, Chicago and Atlanta. Under the NBA’s previous top-8 format, the East’s lowest-qualifying playoff team would’ve been Miami at 46-36. That’s respectable.
But the PIT isn’t about respectable; it’s about spectacle. As this year’s version got underway, there were a couple of tantalizing storylines – only a couple, but that’s all you usually need.
In the West, teams featuring LeBron James and Anthony Davis, Steph Curry and Klay Thompson, Zion Williamson, and De’Aaron Fox were all jockeying for their post-season survival. Why? Because their respective teams were merely okay for most of the season, never great.
But you can see why Silver and the NBA owners favored adding a few more playoff possibles in the first place. Again, going back to the top-8 grid of playoffs past, both the Golden State Warriors and Sacramento Kings would’ve been on the outside looking in. Instead, viewers got a Warriors-Kings elimination game on Tuesday night.
The notion of seeing Curry and his crew go out in a one-game tire fire is generally going to be worth a few eyeballs – and that’s the whole ballgame here. Last year’s six PIT games, broadcast on ESPN and TNT, averaged 2.64 million viewers, a 5% increase from the year before.
That’s how this works. By most estimates, the PIT has added millions of dollars in value for the league’s broadcast partners. You can argue that, depending upon the year, the 7-8-9-10 configuration also heightens interest in the last couple of weeks of the regular season, simply because nobody wants to be relegated to the 9-10 elimination game.
It all matters to a league that, like most sports enterprises in America, is trying to figure out the viewer landscape amid a rapidly changing market. Silver acknowledged as much last fall in an interview with Yahoo Sports, saying that the decline in cable subscriptions “has disproportionately impacted the NBA” because the league’s fan demographic trends younger but the remaining cable audience is older.
“Our young audience isn’t subscribing to cable,” Silver told Yahoo, “and those fans aren’t finding our games.”
There’s no doubt the NBA is addressing that issue as it negotiates with TNT and ESPN, whose rights expire in 2025. While cable options might be cut back, the league has to find a way to expand its reach through a significant streaming partnership. It could be part of the impending ESPN/Fox/Warner platform or something else, but it needs to be easily identifiable and easily accessed.
You’d go a little crazy trying to figure out where the NBA stands in terms of viewership. Its opening night last fall was a bust, but the new in-season tournament was a ratings hit. The league got smoked by the NFL on Christmas Day, enjoyed a huge uptick on All-Star Saturday Night, then played a desultory All-Star Game only to see viewer numbers go up from the year before. (Granted, that was a rise from an all-time ratings low.)
Silver, who’s wrapping up a contract extension that will keep him in the commissioner’s job through the end of the decade, has been warily eyeing the TV numbers for years. He isn’t new to any of the concerns, and he has been forcefully behind both the in-season tournament and this PIT creation, which everyone involved has no problem labeling a blatant viewership ploy.
That’s because, for lack of a crisper phrase, it is what it is. The play-in is every bit as basic as it looks, and it was put in place for no reason other than to expand the playoff field and generate a little extra heat through the schedule’s final few weeks, along with these early days of the post-season.
And it generates millions. For Silver and Co, that’s the end of the conversation.
Mark Kreidler is a national award-winning writer whose work has appeared at ESPN, the New York Times, Washington Post, Time, Newsweek and dozens of other publications. He’s also a sports-talk veteran with stops in San Francisco and Sacramento, and the author of three books, including the bestselling “Four Days to Glory.” More of his writing can be found at https://markkreidler.substack.com. He is also reachable on Twitter @MarkKreidler.
BSM Writers
Verne Lundquist Deserved All The Praise and More During Final Broadcast
Verne Lundquist might be the last of a dying breed. And for all of the fantastic moments he’s had behind the microphone, there was a missed opportunity for one final hurrah.
Published
19 hours agoon
April 17, 2024Verne Lundquist deserved to call the final holes of The Masters for CBS Sports on Sunday.
While celebrating his 40th time calling golf’s grandest stage, it also marked the end of his illustrious broadcasting career. Lundquist has been a fixture not only at Augusta but also on CBS Sports properties like the SEC on CBS, the Army/Navy Game, and the NCAA Tournament.
But Verne Lundquist is part of the last of a dying TV play-by-play breed.
He was never going to make his final assignment about him.
When you tuned into a broadcast being called by the 83-year-old, you were bound to witness a broadcasting masterclass. The ability to weave humor in and out of the broadcast, along with tenacious prep work, fantastic storytelling, and an intricate knowledge of letting the pictures tell the story were Lundquist’s trademarks.
Take, for instance, his call of the famous “Kick Six” in the 2013 Iron Bowl. In 25 seconds of action, the only thing he says is “On the way … No. Returned by Chris Davis. Davis goes left. Davis gets a block. Davis has another block! Chris Davis! No flags! Touchdown, Auburn! An answered prayer!”
He didn’t speak for the next 65 seconds, letting the pictures — some of which have lived on in infamy — tell the story.
It wasn’t overhyped catchphrases, screaming, or “look at me!” energy that has somewhat permeated modern television play-by-play that made Lundquist a TV legend. It was a dedication to the craft.
It was great to see so many tributes from not just fellow broadcasters but also from some of the PGA Tour players — especially Tiger Woods — for Lundquist in his final assignments.
Make no mistake about it: Verne Lundquist is a titan of the industry and deserved all of the praise that was heaped on him during his final assignment. And I’m not unreasonable, I don’t know that you could expect Jim Nantz — who gave up calling the NCAA Tournament — to step aside for Lundquist to call the final holes of The Masters, when he gave up another high-profile gig to spend more time focusing on golf’s biggest tournament.
But when a guy like Verne Lundquist — who you could argue belongs on the Mount Rushmore of TV play-by-players — is ending his career at a place that he says “means just about everything, professionally,” I think it has to enter someone’s brain to give him the chance to make the call.
Now, maybe the most likely scenario is that Nantz, or retiring CBS Sports Chairman Sean McManus, did invite Lundquist to wrap his career by cementing Scottie Scheffler’s place in immortality at Augusta National. But watching Verne Lundquist from afar, it’s likely he decided to not shine the spotlight on himself. A quality that took him to the top of the sports broadcasting mountaintop.
I hope Lundquist appreciates all of the admiration shown to him over the past week, from contemporaries and those who participated in the action alike. It was our honor, and our privilege, to listen to Verne Lundquist for all those years. Not only at The Masters, but the Olympics, college football and basketball, and beyond.
Garrett Searight is the Editor of Barrett News Media and a weekly columnist for Barrett Sports Media. He has previously served as Program Director and Afternoon Co-Host on 93.1 The Fan in Lima, OH. He is also the radio play-by-play voice of Northern Michigan University hockey. Reach him at [email protected].
BSM Writers
Q Myers, ‘GameNight’ Places Women’s Basketball at the Forefront on ESPN Radio
“I think everything we’ve done has built up where we continue to allow ourselves to do more because of what we’ve done and our consistency.”
Published
19 hours agoon
April 17, 2024It all started with an idea and aspiration that the momentum would persist and continue to move in the right direction. Qiant Myers, a longtime radio veteran who works as the program director for the Las Vegas Sports Network and hosts several programs centered on the Las Vegas Raiders, was looking to do something different on ESPN Radio GameNight leading up to the NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Tournament. With March Madness rapidly approaching, the program devised a strategy to implement discussion about the teams and players within the bracket, diligently preparing by booking guests to be interviewed and contribute to the discussion.
Myers and his colleagues take part in a weekly listening session in which they review different parts of GameNight and discuss both strengths and weaknesses. ESPN Radio afternoon program director Mike Urrunaga often joins in these calls to provide his insights and analysis, looking to bolster the quality of the on-air product. The program utilizes a rotation of several hosts, including Myers, Emmett Golden and Jonathan Zaslow, all of whom bring a consistent approach to serve as a source of information and entertainment while inviting listener opinions.
Being based in Las Vegas, Nev., Myers can evince the presence of women’s sports and perceives its rapid proliferation in the marketplace. The Las Vegas Aces have won the WNBA championship in the last two seasons, while the University of Las Vegas is widely considered to have one of the strongest women’s basketball programs in the country.
At the same time, he recognized the success of new teams in establishing fanbases over time, including the Vegas Golden Knights. The defending Stanley Cup champions frequently fill T-Mobile Arena to standing-room capacity, embedded within the zeitgeist and sports renaissance taking place in the city. Concurrently, the Aces averaged at the top of the WNBA in average attendance last season and have leveraged on-court play and stars to help expand its fanbase. With the possibility of more professional sports leagues considering the city for relocation and/or expansion, Las Vegas is among the quintessential examples of sustaining and thriving with both women’s and men’s sports organizations.
“I felt like I already had a foot in the door because I’m paying attention to what’s going on,” Myers said. “I’ve been watching women’s basketball for a long time and really appreciate it.”
When Myers demonstrated his avidity for women’s basketball prior to the start of March Madness, his co-workers recognized that predilection and capitalized on it. In essence, GameNight worked to become the radio home of the tournament by crafting a distinctive sound and disseminating it en masse. The initiative was not only about introducing the athletes to listeners, but also showcasing their personalities and establishing an interpersonal connection.
“I’m a big believer in if the hosts are passionate about something, that passion will carry and it will draw listeners in,” show producer Tara Sledjeski said. “Anything you do – if your hosts are into it – I think you can sell it to the audience because they’re going to be interested in it if the hosts are into it.”
There were several coaches that appeared on the program whose husbands are members of the coaching staff. Additionally, some of the players presented anecdotes about how they would watch and attend women’s basketball games when they were younger and became inspired to pursue the career themselves. By humanizing the guests on GameNight, the interviews were able to more readily appeal to listeners, especially those who are either unfamiliar with or unwilling to accept the burgeoning pantheon of women’s sports.
“I think it is about finding those personal things of why you should be interested in these people, and I think with all sports, it always comes down to the stars, which we’ve especially learned with women’s basketball,” Sledjeski said. “Caitlin Clark – everyone cares about Caitlin Clark, so I think it’s just finding things that will make people resonate with these girls.”
Clark in particular has stood out among the pack of incoming WNBA players, catapulting to become one of the most eminent athletes in the world. Clark was recently drafted No. 1 overall by the Indiana Fever and became the top-selling draft pick in Fanatics history, garnering demand for her jersey from basketball fans around the world.
Nielsen measured the rematch of last year’s National Championship Game between Iowa and LSU to amass an average of 12.3 million viewers. Peaking at 16.1 million, the game marked the most-watched college basketball game to be presented on ESPN platforms before the Final Four.
ESPN went on to break that record two more times in the next five days, beginning with the Final Four game featuring Iowa and UConn that averaged 14.4 million viewers. Although Iowa did not win the National Championship Game, it posted a valiant effort against South Carolina in a game that attained 18.9 million viewers, ending tournament coverage that was up 121% year-over-year.
The metric was significant for Sledjeski, who grew up watching men’s sports and playing softball. When the sport was removed from the Olympic Games in 2008, she wondered what encapsulated the acme of the game, and the fact that these athletes could no longer win gold medals in the games was disheartening and perplexing. Watching the women’s National Championship game outdraw the men’s iteration for the first time in the history of March Madness represented a monumental achievement and step towards further prosperity.
While it can be difficult to attribute a direct correlation, those involved believe that GameNight had an effect on interest in women’s basketball based on observation and logic. Associate producer Rachael Robinson, who also works on the evening program Amber & Ian, enjoyed taking part in the tournament-specific endeavor, during which she learned about personnel within the sport and their indelible impact on its growth.
“Looking back, that was a fantastic idea,” Robinson said. “It’s kind of fun to be ahead of the game. I always enjoy it. People might question you in the moment, but once it blows up, because you know it’s going to eventually, you look like a genius.”
Since GameNight is under the ESPN company umbrella, the program is able to leverage the deep roster of multiplatform talent and have them on for segments during the show. For example, basketball analysts Andraya Carter and Carolyn Peck appeared on the show to discuss the tournament. Following the Final Four games, analyst Jimmy Dikes and reporter Holly Rowe also joined the program to provide their expertise within the overall discussion. ESPN recently reached a new, eight-year media rights agreement with the NCAA that grants the network rights to 40 championships, including all rounds of the Division I Women’s Basketball Tournament.
“It’s great that ESPN has the rights to all this,” Sledjeski explained, “because it helps us then to bring in our analysts and bring in people that were there and people that were on the call to give that insight of what’s going on.”
“They did such a fantastic job that it made ESPN, really truly the home not only on radio, but on TV,” Myers added. “….I felt like we were the voices leading into the tournament on the radio. I feel like it all worked together.”
Before the tournament began, the GameNight team worked to secure and feature several key figures from women’s basketball, such as Notre Dame guard and ACC defensive player of the year Hannah Hidalgo. Big 12 Conference co-player of the year Madison Booker, Pac-12 Conference most improved player of the year Kiki Iriafen and MAAC coach of the year Carly Thibault-DuDonis were also among the guests at this time. Aside from discussing the games themselves, the program also found ways to engage in storytelling that would effectuate a comprehensive synopsis as to their personas both on and off the court.
“We’re going to do all the research, [and] we’re going to get all the fun facts,” Myers said. “Tara does a great job of that, and obviously I’m going to do my research at the same time…. We did the show before the show because we were just so busy grinding, but that’s the beauty of it.”
As the producer of GameNight, Sledjeski knows that it made the program a more compelling listen in going beyond the action on the court. Certain answers and details stood out within its coverage pertaining to a variety of topics, one of which was a joint interview with Iowa State freshman center Audi Crooks and freshman forward Addy Brown. The teammates became close friends throughout the season and discussed the camaraderie between them and the rest of the team. Furthermore, the program welcomed UNLV head coach Lindy La Rocue who shed light on balancing her personal and professional responsibilities.
“My mind is still blown by her story because last year, she literally had her first child in early November and she was back on the sidelines coaching a week later,” Sledjeski said. “That is mind-blowing, and she gave a great answer about her daughter always being around the team and how she can’t separate things.”
Amid the tournament, GameNight had a plethora of athletes and coaches on the airwaves for interviews, including Oklahoma forward Skylar Vann, Oregon State guard Talia von Oelhoffen and North Carolina guard Alyssa Ustby. Sledjeski informed members of the show to tag the specific universities and basketball programs who the players were representing, which led to several subsequent posts and additional engagement. Robinson was responsible for posting audio from these conversations, and she hopes to augment the breadth of digital distribution accompanying the national radio exposure.
“I really enjoyed it because it was different, because a lot of shows were paying attention to it because it was an initiative and it was going so well,” Robinson said, “but they were very good at getting the lesser-known stories out of the tournament and really pushing them and becoming the home of the tournament.”
In addition to guest interviews and discussion on the air, GameNight also cultivated a social media campaign where it ranked and created a bracket to determine the best Division I basketball program in the country. Women’s and men’s programs engaged in head-to-head battles determined by fan votes on social media about who would win each matchup. Sledjeski presented the concept and seeded the teams for the six-round competition situated similar to March Madness. There were 16 teams within each division (East; Midwest; South; West), narrowing the bracket from 64 to the Final Four.
“That was a whole lot of work to put that bracket together,” Myers said. “Just by her wanting to put that together got me excited about it. It made me want to be like, ‘Yeah, let’s lean into this. Let’s do this. If she’s willing to put in that work, let’s lean into it, let’s have some fun with it and let’s talk about it.’”
Visualizing the competition in a bracket format tied into the theme surrounding March Madness, but determining the exact theme of the venture took several iterations. As she continued to ruminate on how such an effort could surface and elicit broad interest, she began to weigh teams experiencing current success and those who had been perennial champions of yore.
“The more you think about it, it’s really tough with all sports and if you’re trying to cover all pros and programs,” Sledjeski said. “I was trying to narrow it down, and I really don’t know what popped into my head, but I thought it’d be really cool when you think about, ‘Okay, we know the UConn women are doing really good; also then how do they compare to the Duke men?’”
ESPN Radio shared polls on X with two basketball teams and asked users to vote on which one was the stronger all-time program. After 60 rounds of voting, the championship matchup came down to the North Carolina Tar Heels men’s basketball program against the UConn Huskies women’s basketball program. In the end, the UConn women’s team garnered just over 92% of the final vote, taking home the championship in the bracket competition. Monitoring the engagement and interaction on social media, Robinson noticed that there was palpable enthusiasm towards the project. In fact, many programs from around the country recognized the campaign and implored their fanbase to vote in an effort to capture the title.
“It was a very interesting way to look at it because it wasn’t the same, ‘Oh, here’s this; here’s this,’” Robinson said. “It was, ‘Look at the history of these two sports and pick the best one.’”
With the book on this year’s edition of March Madness closed, it does not indicate the end of covering women’s sports on GameNight and ESPN Radio. As teams across the WNBA prepare for opening night next month, collegiate stars including Caitlin Clark, Cameron Brink and Kamilla Cardoso aim to make an impact and assimilate into the league. Building off the momentum from the tournament, ESPN Radio intends to feature a WNBA player every week of the season, an effort that will likely coincide with games on television.
Viewership of the league last season reached a 17-year high with an average of 440,000 people watching games presented on ESPN, ABC and ESPN2. With national media rights for both the WNBA and NBA expiring after next season, respective league commissioners Cathy Engelbert and Adam Silver have addressed the growth of both entities. ESPN and Warner Bros. Discovery are currently in an exclusive negotiating window with the NBA that runs through next Monday, April 22. ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro believes that the WNBA will be included in a potential renewal with the NBA, a league that is reportedly aiming to implement a regular streaming element into its portfolio.
For now, GameNight is focused on utilizing its resources and platform to drive awareness of and interest in women’s sports through storytelling and regular discussion. The shifting paradigm within athletics has placed women’s sports at the center of conversations rather than it being disregarded or considered an afterthought.
“I think that it’s continuing to get better and growing, and obviously the star power is always going to help because now there’s people in this tournament obviously that watch the game because Caitlin Clark was fantastic,” Myers said. “Now hopefully, now there’s sticking power [and] now hopefully they come back and say, ‘Oh man, let me see it again…’ Now I feel like I can feature more as well, and it’s appreciated instead of, ‘Oh, they’re trying to force feed it because they’re trying to play nice with the ladies.’”
Deloitte projects women’s sports to generate more than $1 billion in revenue for the first time this year, coverage of which comes from ESPN through its radio, television and digital platforms. The team at GameNight and ESPN Radio have discerned and witnessed audience interest in various leagues, teams and games themselves that comprise women’s sports. These discussions are not derivative or contrived in nature; rather, they are genuine opinions that emanate from keen focus on implications and outcomes therein. GameNight intends to continue shattering glass ceilings while not allowing prejudicial, misogynistic commentaries to impede the progress towards equality.
“I think everything we’ve done has built up where we continue to allow ourselves to do more because of what we’ve done and our consistency,” Myers said. “…We’ve earned the right to continue to build up what we’ve already started and see how far it can go.”
Derek Futterman is a contributing editor and sports media reporter for Barrett Sports Media. Additionally, he has worked in a broad array of roles in multimedia production – including on live game broadcasts and audiovisual platforms – and in digital content development and management. He previously interned for Paramount within Showtime Networks, wrote for the Long Island Herald and served as lead sports producer at NY2C. To get in touch, find him on Twitter @derekfutterman.