Sports Talk Show Hosting

Off-the-Shelf Questions For Your Postgame Interviews

Jon Chelesnik

interview

When I was on ESPN Radio, I used to hate when my producer Jason McBride would pop into my headset and say, “We have so-and-so on from the baseball game. They just won 3-1.”

Great. What am I supposed to ask the guy? I didn’t see the game – I was on the air!

Tired of getting caught unprepared, I put together some standard, off-the-shelf questions. Most of them aren’t very insightful, but at least they can get the interview started. From there, you can spontaneously ask more thoughtful questions based upon the answers you receive.
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Posted in: Play-by-play, Sports Talk Show Hosting

How Kobe Bryant’s Legacy Should Influence Your Sportscasting

Jon Chelesnik

When Kobe Bryant retired from the NBA, he was asked about his post-career plans. He replied that he wanted to write books and make documentaries.

He said he wanted to inspire through stories.

Everybody loves stories. It begins in childhood with bedtime stories, and we never really outgrow them.

There are ways you can use stories to distinguish your sportscasting.
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Posted in: My Career, Play-by-play, Sports Anchoring, Sports Talk Show Hosting

The Jim Rome Move to Instantly Improve Your Sports Talk Ratings

Jon Chelesnik

There are two sports talk radio shows I especially enjoy listening to. One is Jim Rome. The other is a local show. I love the content from both shows. However, I’m prone to tuning out the local show.

Why would I do that? Because sometimes the local show buries the main topic under five minutes of small talk. When they do, I change the channel even though I’m otherwise dedicated to the show.

On the other hand, Jim Rome immediately gets to the topic. If I tune in to hear his take on the big story of the day, I don’t have to wait long for him to get right to it.
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Posted in: Sports Talk Show Hosting

4 Ways To Instantly Increase Your Sports Talk Radio Ratings

Jon Chelesnik

On the day of the first time I presented the Jim Nantz Award at the National Sports Media Association Awards Banquet, I went for a swim in the hotel pool. It was two hours before the banquet started. When I emerged from the water, my eyes were on fire. I looked in the mirror and they were bloodshot from the chlorine. “My goodness,” I thought. “I’m attending this banquet for the first time and everybody is going to think I’m on something.”

I needed instant results.
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Posted in: Sports Talk Show Hosting

5 Rules for Choosing Sports Talk (or Podcast) Topics

Jon Chelesnik

When I was hosting sports talk radio in San Diego, I sometimes struggled to choose topics for my show. This was especially true in mid-summer when the Padres were bad and the Chargers season hadn’t yet started.

What do you talk about?

Fortunately, there are 5 rules you can use to prep the topics your audience wants to you hear you discuss.
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Posted in: Sports Talk Show Hosting

Conversational Sports Talk: 4 Tips for Sounding Natural On Air

Jon Chelesnik

Recently, I listed to the first demo tape I ever made. I was a sophomore at the Princeton of the Plains, Kansas State University. The cassette (yep – cassette) included mostly sportscasts and live reports from K-State football games for various radio stations around the conference.

As I listened, I blushed with embarrassment. I was bad. The sportscasts sounded scripted and rehearsed because . . . well, they were scripted and rehearsed. Yikes.
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Posted in: Sports Anchoring, Sports Talk Show Hosting