Connect with us
blank

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…”

Ricky Keeler

Published

on

Matt Leinart

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 2019Over 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.” 

Sports TV News

ESPN Sees Larger Than Average Audience For Big City Greens Classic

blank

Published

on

blank

ESPN aired Tuesday night’s New York Rangers and Washington Capitals game. DisneyXD and Disney Channel aired an alternate broadcast that included players being 3D animated to resemble the cast of Disney Channel’s popular cartoon Big City Greens. It turned into a ratings win for the networks.

The alternate broadcast featured players animated in real time to mimic what was happening on the Madison Square Garden ice. Players were equipped with special chips in the padding to aid the animation, and special pucks were used to ensure a smooth transition from video to computer-animated graphics.

An average of 589,000 viewers tuned into the game on ESPN. Meanwhile, nearly 175,000 watched the broadcast between Disney Channel and DisneyXD.

The figure for ESPN represents its largest NHL broadcast since a November 1st broadcast featuring the Pittsburgh Penguins and Boston Bruins.

The combined total for the broadcast — 765,000 — outdrew the World Baseball Classic broadcasts but did not top the NCAA Tournament’s First Four round that was broadcast on truTV.

Continue Reading

Sports TV News

Greg Gumbel: I’m Lucky That I’ve Never Been Fired

“I worked for some people who didn’t like me, I’ve worked for some people I didn’t like. It’s a strange business, there’s no doubt.”

Ricky Keeler

Published

on

Greg Gumbel

This week, it was announced that Greg Gumbel will no longer be a play-by-play announcer for the NFL on CBS after working on CBS’s NFL coverage every year since 1998. Gumbel has had an illustrious career and he takes pride in the fact that one thing has never happened to him.

Gumbel was a guest on the Tell Me A Story I Don’t Know podcast with George Ofman (Part 2 from an interview back in September) and he told Ofman that while he has never been fired before, but he doesn’t think broadcasters should be embarrassed when they get fired because of what the business is.

“It’s the nature of the business. I honestly think I’ve been extremely fortunate in that I’ve never been fired in a business that is known for firings. Being fired in this business is no shame, no embarrassment because it’s a subjective business. Because this guy at this network likes my work, it doesn’t mean that this guy at that network does. It’s extremely subjective and if you can buy that and understand it the way it is, then it shouldn’t bother you at all.

“It’s never happened to me. If it had, it would not have surprised me. I worked for some people who didn’t like me, I’ve worked for some people I didn’t like. It’s a strange business, there’s no doubt.”

Gumbel has been the host of CBS’s NCAA Tournament coverage for the last 25 years and he knows it’s a job that he is very grateful to have.

“I know there are people who would give their right arm to be sitting there next to Clark Kellogg and Seth Davis on Selection Sunday or sitting next to Kellogg, Kenny Smith, and Charles Barkley when the tournament begins to talk about what we’ve just seen or what we are going to see. I am never, ever going to take for granted the fact that I have been very fortunate to be able to do that.”

One thing Gumbel tries to avoid whenever he is on air is the mispronunciation of someone’s name because he knows how it feels to have his name distorted accidentally by some people.

“Pronunciations are important to me. There’s been a lifetime of people who may not completely mispronounce my name, but distorting it a little bit from time to time. I never want to do that to an athlete. If I ever mispronounce an athlete’s name, I hear it from his family, I hear it from the school or the team and I apologize for it as soon as I can. I don’t think that is something light or should be taken for granted.”

Toward the end of the interview, Gumbel was asked by Ofman when he will know it will be time to end his career.

“Other people have given it more thought than I have. I think when that time comes around, it will hit me over the head more than I will think about it. There are people who ask me why I still do what I do. The very bottom line is I love it, I enjoy it.”

Continue Reading

Sports TV News

Diamond Sports Group Misses Arizona Diamondbacks Rights Payment

It is believed that the missed rights payment by Bally Sports Arizona triggers a clause in the contract that reverts the television rights back to the Diamondbacks and Major League Baseball.

blank

Published

on

blank

Last week, Diamond Sports Group — operator of the Bally Sports-branded regional sports networks — claimed it had paid every rights fee it was contractually obligated, except for the Arizona Diamondbacks.

At the time, the company said it had a grace period until it needed to make a payment. That payment was due by Thursday, March 16th at 11:59 PM. That time has come and gone, and the company failed to deliver its fee.

It is believed that the missed rights payment by Bally Sports Arizona triggers a clause in the contract that reverts the television rights back to the Diamondbacks and Major League Baseball.

The Diamondbacks are not the only team affected by the situation. Bally Sports — which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy earlier this week — has also reportedly entered a grace period with the San Diego Padres. According to a report from Sports Business Journal, that grace period ends on March 30th, baseball’s Opening Day.

Previous reporting claims that contract is one the network hopes to get out from under. The company loses a reported $20 million per season on its television deal with the Padres. The Cincinnati Reds and Cleveland Guardians are the other two baseball franchises the network holds the rights to that it hopes to terminate deals for.

Continue Reading
Advertisement

blank

Barrett Media Writers

Copyright © 2023 Barrett Media.