Episode 274 of the Sports Media Podcast features Chantel Jennings and Sabreena Merchant. Both Jennings and Merchant are national writers for The Athletic covering the WNBA and women’s college basketball. In this podcast, Jennings and Merchant discuss how they approach covering women’s basketball on a national level; the WNBA’s Liberty and Aces, which now feature 10 of the league’s 30 best players including Breanna Stewart Jonquel Jones, Sabrina Ionescu, A'ja Wilson, Candace Parker and Kelsey Plum, among others; how a potential super team looks in 2023 compared to the Minnesota Lynx of Maya Moore and Seimone Augustus; the player empowerment era of the WNBA; what free agency means for media coverage of the WNBA and specifically how ESPN will cover and program games this season; whether there is value in the WNBA being talked about on shows such as First Take; how Britney Griner in will be covered this year by media outlets; the 2024 WNBA Draft; whether Paige Bueckers and Aliyah Boston should use their COVID year exemption to stay in school longer; the role of sports gambling as it pertains to the WNBA; Las Vegas lines on women’s basketball; and more. You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, and more. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Episode 273 of the Sports Media Podcast features a conversation with The Boston Globe sports media writer Chad Finn and Sports Business Journal assistant managing editor/digital Austin Karp on Tom Brady’s retirement and what it means for Fox Sports and Greg Olsen. They are followed by The Athletic investigative reporter Katie Strang. In this podcast, Finn and Karp discuss Brady’s retirement and what that means for Fox; how Olsen is impacted by the news; the expectations on Brady as a broadcaster; if Olsen has options away from Fox; NHL viewership on ESPN and TNT dropping 22 percent heading into the All-Star break; falling Winter Classic viewership numbers; Boston’s Channel 4 testing a 6 p.m. newscast without a sports report; covering Bobby Hull and how to write an obit of a miserable human being; SBJ’s Michael Smith’s story that the NCAA has picked Karen Brodkin and Hillary Mandel to prepare the NCAA for its next round of media rights negotiations and more. Strang discusses her reporting on Zvi Levran, who is accused of sexually assaulting multiple hockey players in the Detroit suburbs. Prosecutors have charged him with 27 counts of sexual misconduct across 12 cases; Levran has pleaded not guilty to all charges; how to approach people who have suffered assault and trauma; the process of learning about a subject who is accused of such things; when to shut off comments on a story; how parents of young athletes protect their families here; whether there is a governmental role in protecting young athletes and more. You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, and more. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Episode 272 of the Sports Media Podcast features a conversation with Fox NFL play by play announcer Kevin Burkhardt and analyst Greg Olsen. Burkhardt and Olsen will call the Niners-Eagles NFC Championship Game, and then Super Bowl LVII on Feb. 12. In this podcast, Burkhardt and Olsen discuss how they judge success for their broadcast; Olsen’s specific preparation for each game; how Burkhardt approaches calling his Super Bowl; Olsen on Tom Brady having a contract with Fox to call the No. 1 game whenever Brady retires; how Olsen has approached the season with regard to the Brady contract; whether Olsen would work in a three-person booth; Burkhardt on Olsen’s audition; Olsen on how Burkhardt’s humility helps the broadcast; the value of looking at the field away from the quarterback position; whether it is an advantage to going into the broadcast booth immediately after retiring; advice Burkhardt received from Mets broadcaster Gary Cohen, and more. You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, and more. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Episode 271 of the Sports Media Podcast features an NFL conversation with Nicki Jhabvala of The Washington Post and Lindsay Jones of The Ringer. They are followed by Susan Slusser of The San Francisco Chronicle, who remembers her friend and the writer and editor, Gwen Knapp, who passed away last week at age 61. In this podcast, Jhabvala and Jones discuss how they would approach covering Niners-Eagles and Bengals-Chiefs; the challenges of covering postseason games if you are a beat person from another market; how to differentiate your stories at a Super Bowl; what they want from an NFL analyst and play by play; an update on the possible sale of the Commanders; the best sites for NFL statistics; what they would you say to fans who love the NFL but also hate certain aspects of the game and more. Slusser discusses what made Knapp such a unique and nuanced writer; Knapp’s career as a columnist and writer in Philadelphia and San Francisco; her being one of the first sports journalists to raise doubts about the validity of Lance Armstrong’s performances; her brilliant July 4, 1993 piece after the Phillies completed a doubleheader at 4:40 in the morning; why she move to the editing desk at the New York Times; the outpouring of love for her and some of the pieces that were written on her this week, and more. You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, and more. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Episode 270 of the Sports Media Podcast features a conversation with Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Jeff Zimbalist, the director and executive producer of “Super League: The War for Football,” which is airing on Apple TV + and chronicles the attempts of teams such as Real Madrid, Arsenal and Juventus to form a breakaway European soccer league. In this episode, Zimbalist discusses his four-part docuseries; the background of why the European super clubs attempted to form their own league; how UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin was able to ward off the breakaway project for now; how to get access from the super-rich; the challenge of recreating events for dramatic purposes; the future of European soccer and more. You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, and more. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Episode 269 of the Sports Media Podcast features a roundtable sports media discussion with Boston Globe sports media writer Chad Finn and Sports Business Journal managing editor/digital Austin Karp. In this podcast, Deitsch, Finn, and Karp discuss the NFL Super Wild Card Weekend; ESPN’s Cowboys-Bucs coverage; Greg Olsen; Tony Romo; Al Michaels; Tony Dungy; Tom Brady’s future ; Fred Gaudelli; Netflix’s sports documentaries including “Break Point”; Apple TV+’s “Super League: The War for Football”; Australian Open coverage and more. You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, and more. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Episode 268 of the Sports Media Podcast features Al Michaels, the iconic sports broadcaster who is coming off his first season as the play by play voice for Amazon Prime Video’s Thursday Night Football. He will also call the opening round of the NFL postseason for NBC. In this podcast, Michaels discusses his first year in the booth for Amazon; working with Kirk Herbstreit; his being critical of some dud game Amazon aired; having never had a pet; the broadcasting prospects of Sean McVay, Tom Brady and Mike Tomlin; Joe Buck and Damar Hamlin information; where sports gambling is heading on NFL broadcasts; the 2024 Paris Olympics; Greg Olsen and more. You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, and more. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Episode 267 of the Sports Media Podcast with Richard Deitsch features a conversation with The Boston Globe sports media writer Chad Finn on ESPN’s studio and broadcast coverage of Damar Hamlin, a 24-year-old safety for the Buffalo Bills, who collapsed on the field during the first quarter of a Jan. 2, 2023 game against the Cincinnati Bengals. Deitsch and Finn discuss how ESPN approached and handled the coverage. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Episode 266 of the Sports Media Podcast features two guests. First up is Tara Slone, a digital, television, and podcast host for the San Jose Sharks and a contributor to NBC Sports Bay Area. She is followed by Stephen Brunt, one of Canada’s most well-known sports voices and the author of multiple bestselling books. including his two latest, “Playing the Long Game,” written with Christine Sinclair, and “All Roads Home: A Life On and Off the Ice,” written with Bryan Trottier. In this podcast, Slone discusses her new job with the NHL’s Sharks and how that came to be; living and working in a new country; her long and distinguished run as a host at Sportsnet (Canada) including her work as co-host on the long-running Rogers Hometown Hockey, which aired on Sportsnet; the shock of being let go by Rogers; dealing with vitriol on social media after her thoughts on Don Cherry and getting hate mail; her previous life as the lead singer of the Juno-nominated band Joydrop; where she thinks sports media is heading in Canada; the issues surrounding hockey culture in Canada and her unique view given her background; the importance of having a platform; what she hopes to do heading forward, and more. Brunt discusses his recent books; how one collaborates with an athlete on a book; how the book with Sinclair came to be; the demand for sports books in Canada; where Brunt thinks sports media is heading in the next five years; the emergence of sports gambling in Canada; the power of sports radio and why we think it’s end days in Canada and more. You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, and more. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Episode 265 of the Sports Media Podcast features The Boston Globe sports media writer Chad Finn and Austin Karp of Sports Business Journal. In this podcast we discuss the sports media stories we expect to be notable in 2023; the upcoming rights for the college football playoffs, the NBA, and LIV Golf; the prospect of Tom Brady in the Fox booth; what we expect viewership-wise for Brittney Griner’s first WNBA game this year; 2023 sports media talents to watch including Malika Andrews, Chiney Ogwumike, and Marie Donoghue; a deep look at Fox’s World Cup coverage and we hope for 2026; Pat McAfee’s 2022; what we expect from sports gambling in 2023, and more. You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, and more. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices