Sports TV News

Matt Leinart On What He Learned from Joel Klatt for FOX’s Big Noon Kickoff

“He said the studio show is this: prepare a mile wide and an inch deep…”

Published

1 year ago

July 27, 2022

Since his football career ended in August 2013, Matt Leinart has been a part of the FOX Sports family as an analyst. Now, he is a part of FOX’s Saturday college football pregame show, BIG NOON KICKOFF , which began in 2019. Over the last eight years or so, the 2004 Heisman Trophy winner has had to work his way from the ground up and grow into a profession that he wasn’t sure he would be good at:

Leinart was a recent guest on The Sports Business Radio Podcast promoting the work he is doing with his new company, Hall of GOATS. He was asked about becoming a broadcaster and it was something he wanted to try once his playing career was over, but he didn’t know how good he would be:

“I hired my agent at the time because I knew it was something that I wanted to try. I didn’t know what I would do. I didn’t know if I would be any good at it, but I wanted to try to get in broadcasting, whatever that meant.”

“FOX is right down the street here in L.A. There were a couple USC people there. We made the connection. Super grateful and I started, did a couple random shows to see if I liked it. Didn’t really have a deal, a couple of one-off things. I think I showed potential. My role kind of grew there because FS1 launched the year before. We were still trying to figure out what shows to put on-air and getting teams in place.“

One of Leinart’s good friends is Joel Klatt. Klatt was a part of FOX’s college football studio shows before becoming a color commentator with Gus Johnson. Once Klatt left the studio, Leinart got the chance to take that spot with Dave Wannstedt, Robert Smith, and Rob Stone at the time and he has enjoyed the atmosphere at FOX:

“It’s been 8 years. I’ve grown and moved up the ladder and worked really hard. It’s such a great atmosphere there. It’s so much fun.”

As Leinart was looking for advice about how to be a good studio analyst, Klatt gave him a piece of information that has stuck with him over all these years:

“I sat with him and I said about the studio show, how do you prepare? He said the studio show is this: prepare a mile wide and an inch deep… If you are calling a game, you are only talking about that game, so you are preparing everything for that game with a couple bullet points here and there on college football. On a studio show, you are covering 100 games and 100 players and different storylines, but you are doing it in a much shorter time. That was the best advice. I’ve always used that advice. Prepare for everything.”

Preparation is key for Leinart and as a part of BIG NOON KICKOFF, he knows he not only has to prepare for FOX’s game of the week that the crew is on-site for, but also to talk about any topic in college football and he enjoys that challenge:

“You are going to get exploited and exposed really quick if you don’t prepare and you don’t know what you are talking about. Some of it is just football so you can talk ‘ball because you have the experience and you’ve been in the locker room and played in big games, you can relate that way. There’s a lot of stuff going on in college football. A lot of moving parts. It’s not like the NFL where all you have is free agency, but for the most part, these teams stay intact for years,” said Leinart.

“There’s always people graduating or leaving for the NFL and there’s always new recruits coming in, so you are constantly changing. That to me is the fun part because it’s challenging in that regard to where you are constantly learning and constantly studying.”

Ricky Keeler

Ricky Keeler is a reporter for BSM with a primary focus on sports media podcasts and national personalities. He is also an active podcaster with an interest in pursuing a career in sports media. You can find him on Twitter @Rickinator555 or reach him by email at [email protected].

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Sports TV News

Final SEC on CBS Broadcast Scores Highest-Rated Conference Championship Game

The broadcast of Alabama/Georgia marked the final game in a partnership that began in 1996.

Published

13 hours ago

December 6, 2023

Jordan Bondurant

The final SEC broadcast on CBS turned out to be the most-watched game of the weekend.

The SEC Championship broadcast on CBS averaged 17.519 million viewers, making it the most-watched conference championship game on any network in five years.

Viewership of the telecast peaked at 22.35 million. The game was the second-most-watched college football game of the season so far behind Ohio State/Michigan.

The game also was the most-streamed college football game ever on Paramount+ across households, minutes, and average minute audience.

Jordan Bondurant

Jordan Bondurant is a features reporter for Barrett Sports Media. He’s a multimedia journalist and communicator who works at the Virginia State Corporation Commission in Richmond. Jordan also contributes occasional coverage of the Washington Capitals for the blog NoVa Caps. His prior media experiences include working for the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the Danville Register & Bee, Virginia Lawyers Weekly, WRIC-TV 8News and Audacy Richmond. He can be reached by email at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @J__Bondurant.

Sports TV News

NBCUniversal CEO Mark Lazarus: People Have Said Sports TV Rights Bubble Would Burst for 30 Years

“For 30 years everyone said, the sports [rights] bubble is gonna burst, it’s gonna burst. You’re starting to see rights fees growth moderate.”

Published

13 hours ago

December 6, 2023

Jordan Bondurant

Courtesy: NBCUniversal, Inc.

Value is power when it comes to sports rights, and NBCUniversal CEO Mark Lazarus understands that. It’s why newly completed media rights deals across sports, and college sports in particular, command billions of dollars from networks each year now.

Next TV reported that Lazarus, in a conversational interview with TODAY host Hoda Kotb on Tuesday, said while the price for rights to properties like the NFL, NASCAR, Notre Dame, and the Big Ten are astronomical, the cost is starting to level off in some ways.

“For 30 years everyone said, the sports [rights] bubble is gonna burst, it’s gonna burst,” Lazarus told Kotb. “You’re starting to see rights fees growth moderate.”

Lazarus mentioned that there are no individual content budgets for sports, news, and entertainment at NBCUniversal. Those three divisions have a single budget executives work from. Executives are responsible for finding content audiences will consume and a platform to house it on.

“What’s the best content and where can it be successful in our portfolio?” Mark Lazarus said. “It’s a combination of art and commerce.”

“We reach massive amounts of people, we have reach and scale,” he later added, pointing out the company reaches 65-70 million homes on pay TV and another 30 million on Peacock.

“That’s great for our distribution partners and that’s great for our advertising partners and it’s really important for our audience.”

Mark touted Sunday Night Football, which is a ratings juggernaut and averages 22 million viewers. The NFL streaming on Peacock has also seen strong numbers this season, with this past week’s Chiefs/Packers game having an average minute audience of 1.86 million viewers. That’s between Peacock, NBC Sports Digital, and NFL Digital platforms. It marked the second-largest streaming audience ever for a regular-season Sunday NFL game for NBC Sports.

Jordan Bondurant

Sports TV News

CBS Sports Shares Details of Spongebob-Themed NFL Broadcasts

Noah Eagle and Nate Burleson return to the booth for both games alongside Dylan Schefter and Young Dylan.

Published

19 hours ago

December 5, 2023

Jeff Kotuby

Get ready for some Turtles on Christmas and some SpongeBob on Super Bowl Sunday. CBS Sports and Nickelodeon are teaming up to deliver two alternate NFL broadcasts this year — one for the Monday night “Nickmas” game between the Las Vegas Raiders and Kansas City Chiefs, and then a second, SpongeBob Squarepants-themed broadcast for Super Bowl LVIII.

Noah Eagle and Nate Burleson return to the booth for both games alongside Dylan Schefter and Young Dylan. The live-action hosts will be joined by two groups of Nicktoons depending on the game.

SpongeBob and Patrick (voiced by Tom Kenny and Bill Fagerbakke, respectively) will join Eagle and Burleson in the booth for Super Bowl LVIII, while Sandy and Larry the Lobster will provide some additional flair from the sidelines. The Bikini Bottom crew will be joined by Dora the Explorer and Boots the Monkey, who will explain penalties to the younger viewers. During the “Nickmas” Game on Dec. 25, the crew will be joined by Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle’s Raphael in the booth, while Donatello will join Schefter on the sidelines.

The Christmas Day game will be Nickelodeon’s first regular-season game, as previous Nick alternate broadcasts were all during Wild Card Weekend. Last year, Nick aired an alternate broadcast of Cowboys/49ers, which drew an audience of 41 million viewers. The games have also become a social media phenomenon from adult viewers watching tongue-in-cheek.

The Nickelodeon Super Bowl telecast and Nickelodeon NFL Nickmas Game are produced by CBS Sports in association with Nickelodeon Productions.

Jeff Kotuby

Jeff Kotuby is a nationally-published journalist with bylines on many popular broadcasting and pop culture sites, including The Streamable, eBaum’s World, Twin Galaxies, and more. Jeff grew up in the shadows of New York City and cultivated his love for sports media with the classic broadcasting voices of the area, like Mike & The Mad Dog, Mike “Doc” Emerick, and Michael Kay. You can reach Jeff on Twitter @JeffKotu3y.