(December 14, 2012) Tony Desiere can add another check mark to his list of career goals: national sports talk host. An STAA client, Desiere is joining Yahoo! Sports Radio.
“It has always been a goal to make it to a national network,” Desiere says.
After breaking into radio in 1993, Desiere started his sports talk career in 1998 in Las Vegas. Since then, he has also hosted in Colorado Springs, CO Charleston, SC and Denver, CO. He is the third STAA client hired by Yahoo! Sports Radio this year and the eighth hired by a national network in 2012.
The opportunity came to Desiere after Yahoo! Sports Radio PD Craig Larson asked STAA CEO Jon Chelesnik for referrals of clients who might be interested and qualified. “I got an email from STAA about a [stealth] opportunity with a sports network and I figured…why not see where this might go,” says Desiere. “A few days later I got an email from Jon to call the PD at Yahoo Sports Radio. I got it on the day we left for Disney World so I spent most of my vacation thinking about this opportunity.”
The timing of Desiere’s new job is perfect. He and his wife Lori had recently relocated to Nashville from Denver, but Desiere was having a hard time cracking the lineup in a local market featuring veteran hosts and little turnover.
“It was hard to get into the talk scene having just moved to the market,” Desiere says. “Guys here have lived in the city almost their whole lives so I didn’t have the in-depth team knowledge yet. Plus the local guys don’t have a tendency to move to other cities, so openings for talk hosts in Nashville were slim to none.”
Though Yahoo! Sports Radio is headquartered in Houston, TX, Desiere won’t have to relocate. Instead, he’ll do his shows from his home studio. He’s been producing syndicated sports updates from his home for the past 10 years, so he already has the necessary equipment. “All I needed was an ISDN line installed and a codec unit. Both were easy enough to get so now the studio is complete and ready to go.
“Thanks [STAA] for the heads up on this opening, and thanks for sending along my Talent Page. I really appreciate it.”