Being On-Air isn’t easy and it isn’t always glamorous, but the rewards can be very high. Starting out can be a struggle, beginning in small town USA and trying mightily to climb the "Market Ladder". These Sports TV On-Air experts have made it, or are making it now. Learn more about their struggles and triumphs.
If you close your eyes for a moment and just listen, the golden voice you hear deftly deferring to his more heralded collegues on set of the NFL on Fox pre-game show is one of the industries only true triple threats. I don’t know how well Curt Menefee can run, pass or kick – but he has mastered the art of anchoring, hosting and play-by-play announcing over his almost 30 years in the broadcast industry…
After working his way up from a seemingly endless array of small market stations, to finally reaching the pinnacle as host of Outside The Lines at ESPN, Steve Bunin has always taken his role as more than just a face on TV seriously.
"I see a lot of college kids that want to be on TV but don’t want to be a journalist. In my heart, I consider myself a journalist first, and a TV anchor second. And I like to think that helped me get to where I have.”
By the time Bob Lorenz reached 11th grade he knew exactly what he wanted to do when he grew up. "My buddy Mike and I, between football and baseball season, would take his portable Sony tape deck to basketball games and do play-by-play and color analysis, then we’d walk around and interview our friends in the stands,“ recalls Lorenz, the lead Sportscaster for the YES Network. “That planted the seed and I never looked back.”
For anyone that thinks the road to Television notoriety is paved with catered meals and company cars, think again. Way before Steve Berthiaume ever set foot on the campus of ESPN, he was the weekend sportscaster in market #197, Charlottesville, Virginia. After years of hard work climbing the market ladder and honing his craft, Berthiaume has been exposed to all sorts…
Passion. Its what makes a sports journalist successful. The excitement for the game, the personalities, the surroundings, the stories. Being a journalist is more than just reciting a box score or reading a teleprompter. The events need to impact you, the stories need to affect you. For YES Network Sportscaster Nancy Newman, that passion has never waned, the simple things still make an impact…
After an All-American career as a softball player at the University of Washington and being an original member of the Colorado Silver Bullets women’s professional baseball team, Angie Mentink had already led an envious life. But it’s her post-playing career job as a Sportscaster at ROOT Sports in Seattle that has led to some of her most indelible memories…
After figuring out he wasn’t going to be a professional baseball player himself, MLB Network Host Matt Yallof figured he’d pursue the next best thing, covering the pros for a living. But the path to his dream job was more curve ball than line drive. “My first job was on the technical side of TV production at CNBC in financial news.” reminisces Yallof, “While I never loved the technical part of the business, It provided me the experience and contacts to make the jump into sports and eventually to on-air work…
The goal of a Sportscaster starting out in the industry is to “cut the market in half” with each new job opportunity. For example, if someone starts their career in market #183 (Charlottesville, VA) their goal should be to step up to somewhere around market #91 (El Paso, TX) with their next big move. It doesn’t always work out that way, but it’s a good goal to have. Sports Reporter Tiffany Blackmon not only cut the market in half, she did it twice just 5 years after graduating from Georgia State University…
Adam Mikulich knew early in life that he wanted to be Sportscaster, “Growing up, my favorite thing in the entire world was going to Mariners games with my Dad. I never wanted those nights to end, I got to thinking that the best way to be able to hang around that atmosphere as an adult would be becoming a Sportscaster.”
When you work in sports broadcasting, competition becomes a huge part of your life, you’re always trying to be faster to a story or come up with a more interesting angle, than the next guy. For WWL-TV Sports Anchor Bryan Salmond, that sense of competition has taken on a new twist, he’s now facing off in a Bayou ratings battle against his childhood idol, Fred Hickman.
“There are two things the general public should not see get made from scratch: sausages and live TV,” opines Troy Oppie, weekend Sportscaster at KBOI-TV in Boise, Idaho. “Young Sports Reporters can get burned out very quickly. This is a business which takes a high motor, good time management and lots of patience.”
The ‘Magic of Television’ isn’t just what you see on air. The real magic is the work that goes on behind the scenes developing the content you watch. From Writers to Copy Editors, Producers and Video Editors the work is intense, but focused. Everyone works toward one goal, develop Sportscasts & Live Sports broadcasts that people will remember.
The unsung heroes of creating memorable Television, these are the men and women who physically create a Sportscast through the use of technology
Someone has to make all the decisions right? Being an executive in Sports TV means creating new programming, hiring and firing staff and overseeing major facets of production. These are the people you want to network with.
Working in Sports TV really is a way of life. Most of your ‘other’ friends will work from 9-5 and have weekends off, but you’ll work weird shifts and holidays. You become your own community, a community of TV junkies who love sports. Here’s what it’s like when you enter the community: