BSM Writers
Ron Hughley Wants to See Change In a Major Way
“I am super motivated by having more people that look like me having a chance to be able to get into this business.”
Published
2 years agoon
By
Brian NoeOne of the most interesting aspects of sports is that no two paths are the exact same. Dallas Mavericks star Luka Doncic is a former No. 3 overall pick from Slovenia. Boston Celtics stud Jayson Tatum is also a No. 3 overall pick, but he was born in St. Louis and went to Duke. Miami Heat forward Jimmy Butler (No. 30 pick) and Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green (No. 35 pick) are both late-round picks that have made multiple All-Star appearances. However, Draymond has only played for the Warriors while Butler is on his fourth NBA team.
Athletes might have similar experiences along the way, but their journeys often differ. The same is true in sports radio. There are many different roads that zigzag all over the place. Ron “The Show” Hughley definitely has a unique story; he got his start in sports radio at the age of 30 and in six years he ascended to radio market number six, his current home, Houston, Texas. Everyone who has that career path please raise your hand. Okay, you can put your hand down now, Ron.
The Show currently hosts afternoon drive on SportsRadio 610 in the same city Butler was born. One of his former program directors says Ron has a screw loose in a good way. The Show’s background and perspectives are different than the bulk of sports radio personalities. We had a very open conversation about the state of the sports talk industry and what Ron wants to see change. Enjoy!
Brian Noe: Where are you originally from?
Ron Hughley: I’m from Kansas City, Missouri. Born and raised there. That’s where I started my career as well. I grew up a fan of all those teams. Still a big, big Kansas Jayhawk fan. You know I’m feeling really good after the national championship. That’s me. A guy who very much loves where he’s from, just like many Kansas Citians.
BN: How do you think it would play in Houston if you were still a die-hard Kansas City Chiefs fan?
RH: Well hell, Brian, they think I am still. [Laughs] No matter what I say, ‘Go back to Kansas City. You just talk about the Chiefs.’ People here still believe no matter what I say, ‘Just go back to Kansas City. You love the Chiefs. You love Patrick Mahomes.’ I will tell them I’m not a Chiefs fan. I’m happy for my friends and family who are still die-hard when they won the Super Bowl, but it wasn’t the same way for me like in 1995 when I was hanging on trying to believe that Steve Bono could lead the Chiefs to a championship. Or in ’97, that Elvis Grbac could lead them to a championship. I just didn’t have that same feeling. But I’m happy for my family and friends. These people here in Houston, it doesn’t matter. ‘He’s from Kansas City. He’s a Chiefs fan. He has to be.’
BN: What would you say is unique about your radio path?
RH: Started at 30. I did some small stuff at MTSU (Middle Tennessee State University) in Murfreesboro. I mean small. I’ve always been into sports. I didn’t even know sports radio was a thing until I was in college. I never listened to sports radio in Kansas City growing up. I knew [Jason] Whitlock was a writer. I didn’t even know he hosted at 610 [SportsRadio] where I got my start. I was 30 years old and I remember my first son was like five, six months and I was getting up to go to church on a Sunday morning. I was like, man, I’ve got to do something. I had worked for 10 years at that time with at-risk youth. That was kind of a passion. I had worked with the YMCA all the way in high school and college and then I worked at a children’s mental hospital. When I moved back to Kansas City I started listening and Nick Wright was on. That was the big thing I was listening to. I was 30 and I was like I need to give this a shot, man. My situation with my wife allowed me to take a chance. I remember being at church. I shot Carrington Harrison — me and him have a mutual friend — I just shot him a Facebook message at 9:30 in the morning. He responded immediately and said he would meet with me and give me some advice. He told me to just have a demo of some sort. I called a buddy of mine who was a music producer and he helped me out doing some production for me. We did like one 30-minute podcast. I put it on Twitter the next day. Carrington then hit me up like five hours later and was like ‘hey, do you want to come in and see how I do a show?’ I’m like ‘sure.’ I came in the very next day and he introduced me to John Hanson who I forever give my career to. It’s a shame that he’s not working in the industry right now. He is one of the best minds out there. He was the perfect person for me to run into. I don’t think there was another program director sitting in that seat that would have got me. I met with him for like 20 minutes. He was like you’d have to start at the bottom if you started here. You’d have to be a board-op. I’m like, cool. He was like you have a demo or anything? I’m like yeah, I do a podcast. I did one episode the night before. He had me email it to him. I left. I went on with Carrington and Ben Heisler and continued to have them put the show together. About 30 minutes later he came in and he was like ‘you’re sure you’ve never done radio before? This is one of the best demos I’ve ever gotten in 20 years.’ From that point he still didn’t bring me in. He made me do another one and come back the next week. We went over it. Then people just started flying off. One of his board-ops quit that very week so then he found space to hire me. I just kind of moved up from that point on.
BN: There’s been a lot of talent in KC. What’s something important that you picked up along the way from your time there?
RH: A lot, man. Danny [Parkins] is one of the best to sit and watch do it. I will never forget, one of the big things from Danny was you’ve got to win the big day. Every day you’ve got to put together solid shows, but if there’s a big day where the Chiefs are drafting Tyreek Hill and the city’s going nuts, how do you win that day? Opening week, how do you win that? Or some breaking news hits, Alex Smith gets traded and now we know they’re going to go with Patrick Mahomes. How do you win the big day? Because the winning of the big day brings people to say okay, that’s where I need to be everyday. Also John Hanson saying different is good. Keep being you. He would tell me all the time you’ve got a screw loose in your head and it’s a good thing. I think just a difference in how I approach things. I wasn’t classically-trained so I never tried to do that. My perspective as a black man in this industry is kind of different anyway. I would bring in a lot of church elements on the show. Those were two big things that I picked up from guys there in Kansas City.
BN: How did you transition from KC to Houston?
RH: I got fired in Kansas City. It caught me off guard. I did not see it coming at all. None of us on the show saw it coming. I was the only one off the show that didn’t continue with the company. At the time, I’m fresh. I’m 34, 35 years old but not very old in the business. I don’t know the business. At this point this is the first real adversity that I’ve ever faced in the radio business outside of me not feeling like I’m rising to a spot fast enough. It was a tough thing. I didn’t understand it. I knew we had a good show. We did so many things that I don’t even know have been done in Kansas City or much in radio. I’ll stand by it right now to this day. But they felt like I didn’t fit with that market, which is odd. I was the one from that place, but they didn’t feel like it with that market. Now I understand why they had to let me go. There was a spot for Vern [Josh Vernier], he was the pre and postgame Royals guy that everybody loved him for and you can slide him back there. There was a spot for Serda who was the producer. For me, what am I going to do? If I’m not going to host, what am I going to do? I was fired there, caught off guard and I was in an odd situation. At this point we have two children and my wife was pregnant with our third. Thanksgiving was the week that it happened. It was a really odd time and I remember talking to John Hanson. He had moved on to Minneapolis, Steve Spector was the program director at the time. I remember talking to John and he said ‘well, welcome to the radio business. It’s started now that you’ve gotten fired.’ It was a weird time and I gave myself probably about a week to be in my feelings. Then we’ve got to get it going. I got some calls from people. I talked to Jason Barrett extensively for a while about things. I met some really good people in the business. Maybe a month-and-a-half after, Armen Williams is on my voicemail talking to me about an opportunity in Houston. I remember I talked to Armen probably every day for about two weeks on my drive home from work. Just getting to know each other. I remember then talking to Clint Stoerner on a lunch break about things. Then they ended up bringing me down to do a test show, see how I would like Houston. After that, they wanted me to come down. I had to talk with the wife and see how that was. All of our support system was in Kansas City. Her parents, my parents. Both of our families live in Kansas City. We were about to have three kids and my wife had a great job where she was potentially going to take over as the CEO of the company. That was the track she was on. We had to make some real tough family decisions but it’s worked out very, very well for us. It’s one of the best decisions that we’ve made.
BN: That’s great, man. How would you compare the general vibe of the sports radio markets in Houston and Kansas City?
RH: It’s the craziest thing, Brian, I’m going to be completely candid here. I started to agree with Spector and Hanson a little bit about what happened with Kansas City. The thought was maybe my style and bringing the black church elements into it, the references that I would use or things of that nature, maybe didn’t play as well with the radio audience in Kansas City. Then coming to the most diverse city in the country in Houston, maybe that plays differently. But the thing that surprised me is it doesn’t. The very same listener base in Kansas City feels very similar to the same listening base in Houston even though it’s the most diverse city in the country. The radio listenership does not seem to represent what the city is. It was a very similar thing. Some of the response I get is very similar to that in Kansas City. I look at those things and that’s really frustrating. It sometimes gets me frustrated thinking that in the business, we’re really catering to the same audiences no matter where you are in the country. That’s one of the things that gives me a lot of motivation right now. Before this, my whole mindset was let me get this as high as I can. I’m in a top-10 market. Where can I go? How can I take this as far as it can go? Can I replicate what Nick Wright has done? That has completely changed now knowing the business and being in a different market.
BN: Where has your focus shifted to now?
RH: For me the number one thing that I want to see change is being able to put out the content that I want to put out, and having conversations that I want to have without feeling like I’m scaring people or I’ve got to temper myself because this audience won’t listen. I want to see the radio audience change. I know I may be being bullish on that, but I am so motivated that there’s more inclusion. For instance, this is something I’ve carried with myself, and I’m not throwing any shade toward Barrett or anything, but one of the things I look at every year is the top 20 that Barrett does. There were 260 available host seats and 29 were minorities on that list. Twenty-nine out of 260. That was something that jumped out to me and that’s a number that I carry in my head that I want to see change. It’s really eye-opening to see who believes those are the best shows because those are the people who make the decision to bring that in. I get it. Hey, this is what the audience wants to hear so I’ve got to put that out there. But man, it’s 2022. I want to see that change in a major, major way. We’re still pushing toward one audience. That’s my big motivation is to see that change. The example I give all the time is I want to be able to freely use Martin references just as anybody uses Seinfeld references. Right now, I feel the audience, it goes right over their head. That’s my goal and dream in this business.
BN: You’re unique and that’s great, but there are some people who don’t like different. What has your experience been like dealing with some people that might voice their frustration with you being different?
RH: It has happened. As you know change is hard and there are some people who are set in ‘this has been sports radio and this is how it has to be and this is the sound.’ I’m always this — and it sometimes gets me in trouble — I’m going to be me. At least I’m going to try to; I’m going to be me. I think when I first got here to Houston, I felt the pressure of, all right, I’ve got to make this job work. I just uprooted my family. My son is about to start his second different school in elementary school. I’ve moved my wife. I’ve got to make this work. That was maybe the first time I felt that way. But I just think eventually, I’ve got to be me. What’s gotten me here was being Show, was being me. There are going to be some people who don’t like it, but I eventually wear on people like Steve Urkel. I wear you down. I get this a lot: ‘I could not stand you. I just did not understand you. You were so loud. But the more I listen to you, I get it and I like it.’ I grow on folks and as I said I am just hoping also that the audience starts to kind of change and move over as well. We add more people so we’re not just having the traditional sports radio listener, that it’s more all inclusive and my style isn’t as wild or crazy sounding.
BN: Future-wise, what do you think would make you the happiest in sports radio or beyond?
RH: The thing that would make me the most happy has really changed. Moving to Houston really brought that up. I feel like before coming here and learning more about the business and everything about it, I was just living what I thought other people were doing. Hey, it would be great to have a gig like Bomani [Jones]. It would be great to get to a place like Nick [Wright] has. I think now for me the most important thing is doing the type of show that I want to do, putting out the type of content and having the conversations that I want to have. I am super motivated by having more people that look like me having a chance to be able to get into this business and to get different perspectives. And not just me, any minorities, women, anybody with just different perspectives in this business. That to me has been more important over the next 10 years for me than getting to a national level like I thought it was. That’s what I thought it was before coming here, but that has changed for me.
BN: What if Houston or some other market brings in a radio host who’s a white guy? With what you just explained about inclusion, what would be your reaction when you want to see things change and it’s not happening?
RH: I’m not saying any of those guys aren’t capable and aren’t good. I don’t have an issue with it. I think it’s just better if we had more perspectives. I think the audience is going to change if you have more perspectives. I’m going to be real with you, I think a lot of the reason why I didn’t know anything about sports radio growing up is because the people who controlled the radio were listening to people who they felt shared the same things that they shared. There were 29 out of the 260 available seats and we’re talking about this huge Brian Flores lawsuit. I’m not saying everybody has the same views because my views are probably very similar to what Danny Parkins’ views were. I remember getting in the car and listening to Parkins immediately. That was one of the first things I wanted to hear. More times than not you’re going to have a similar perspective being pushed out about a very serious thing, or in many cases because of the audience, that topic is thought to be kind of dangerous or we might scare or run people off so hell, they may just brush past it and not really talk about it. I think that needs to change. I feel like some things that I want to talk about or I have a perspective on are things that could be considered too scary for listeners or could be considered to make listeners uncomfortable enough to not want to listen. But I can tell you a whole lot of people that look like me, if they heard that I was on, they turn it on. That’s a perspective that’s not heard and when you’ve got 29 out of 260, it’s hard to get those other perspectives. I don’t have anything against hosts. Sean Pendergast that I work with is amazing. Seth Paine is great. Clint Stoerner, I work with every day, is great. Landry is great. I’m not talking about that. But at some point, man, 29 out of 260. That’s got to change.
Brian Noe is a columnist for BSM and an on-air host heard nationwide on FOX Sports Radio’s Countdown To Kickoff. Previous roles include stops in Portland, OR, Albany, NY and Fresno, CA. You can follow him on Twitter @TheNoeShow or email him at [email protected].
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
16 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
16 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
16 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.