Last Tuesday’s post about the podcast actually provided the long-needed inspiration for its name. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, A Sports Scribe presents to you… The Exchange.
The Exchange?
Well, yeah.
See, when reading the final edited version of the post, chatting with potential guests and the likely co-host, it just made sense.
I’ve always believed that there’s no better social currency in the world than sports. You could drop me off in the middle of any foreign nation and if there’s some sort of game on, even a rather unfamiliar game, quite a few people are willing to strike up a conversation.
Business, politics and religion speak to a geographic identity while music and film speak to the individual psyche. Yet, sports are rather unique in that they can touch upon both in a manner that no other realm can.
Mention any local team or its rival and immediately, ears perk up, opinions are strewn about and some good-natured ribbing occurs. The conversation might drift a bit, especially when rival fans briefly come together to talk smack about a third team just for the heck of it. Yet, somehow, these people don’t forget each other, even if they don’t encounter one another ever again. There was a brief bond between people of disparate views on life and society because for a few hours a day or week, they cheer for laundry, as Jerry Seinfeld once quipped.
Now, mention that you’re not a Jay-Z fan. No one ever speaks to you about music again unless they want to a) try to convince you that you “aren’t really hearing him” but sending you his songs, b) examine your personal tastes like a snobby music critic and/or c) ridicule you for “being a hater”.
Movies? Please.
Religion? No comment.
Politics? C’mon, Man!
Business? You’re kidding, right?
It’s not that conversations on sports are perfect; in fact, after a loss, some fans and media tend to be saltier than the ocean and spread that unfocused anger to whoever has the nerve to mention their team’s name. Yet, we all come together to discuss who, what, when, where, why and how these insanely talented people move around some oblong object for a couple of hours.
As discussed before, The Exchange will try to pool together fans of varied interests, including all of those who drum the beat of “who cares about sports when we have real problems in this world?”. However, we will do so not only in discussions between the hosts, but with interviews with fellow writers, sports and media industry professionals and eventually current and former athletes. The analysis we will bring is rooted not only in our research and intrinsic knowledge, but just like Scribe, a mix of the business and culture that give sports such a unique gravitas.
So, who is ‘we’? At some point, Sumit Dasgupta will introduce himself formally. Hopefully, he'll become a significant contributor on the writing side, but when it came to launching the audio component, there’s not another person in the world I would have done so with. Sumit has one of the more brilliant game analysis minds I’ve ever encountered, but like me, his curiosity for what surrounds the on-field action will shine through in each show. Sumit lives in the Boston suburbs, but also like myself, doesn’t exactly follow the script of the local beat. Think of this show as a testament to the power of the internet; actually bring these brother cities together for 60 minutes.
If you were one of the three people on earth that remembered our program at Babson College, "I Dunno, but..." (shout out to the alma mater), you know that we will never have an issue filling up time. However, for the rest of planet Earth, all you need to know is that our show was the inspiration for my career.
As for our first edition of The Exchange; we will be talking about current happenings with the NBA and NHL playoffs, an introduction of ourselves individually and the seemingly forgotten NFL Draft.
Geez, NFL? Really?
Well, yes. We won’t just discuss picks and projections, but we will also talk about the different air around the Draft this time around thanks to the lockout. We expect as many questions from you as you expect answers, so our first guest – and wonderful friend to Scribe – Steelergurl, will chat with us about what’s truly going on. The well-respected blogger on the AFC Champs will be in New York next week for the Draft, so she’ll give all of us a tremendous look into all the hubbub before the lights come on Thursday night.
Of course, you will have an opportunity to interact on the show as it will be hosted on BlogTalkRadio. You can participate by calling into the show live as well as joining the chat room. You can follow The Exchange here and for questions you might have in advance, please feel free to send them through all things Scribe.
The podcast itself will be available for download the following morning.
Say What?!?!: Many thanks to the homies at Ed the Sports Fan for allowing me to plug the show last night. You can consider us the Tuesday night appetizer to their Wednesday evening supper called The Unsportsmanlike Conduct Show.
Showing posts with label live radio. Show all posts
Showing posts with label live radio. Show all posts
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Monday, April 11, 2011
What's This About Doing a Show?
When you’ve worked in the media or have made some appearances in the public space, you’re looked upon as some sort of expert in whatever you are discussing at large. Of course, you should be highly knowledgeable in something; whether it’s a specific subject or at least the discipline of conducting interviews & facilitating those discussions.
There is not an arena that this is more evident than in the sports world. Though there are similarities to how other interests are covered, what makes sports media as a whole, for the lack of a better term, “go” is that knowledge is constantly questioned, tested and challenged by the consumers. Yet, it seems that more often than not, there’s a lot of posturing, “shocking” and ego-flexing as opposed to engagement. No one is immune to at least one toe-dip in those waters, but the idea that this is the only way to speak publicly on sports tends to keep people away from actually learning more about and actually enjoying the games.
Well, as you can tell, I’m not all-knowing of anything. Tying “Clinkscales” without spell-check is an accomplishment in itself, let alone having some sort of debate about what we’re watching live on TV.
What I am, however, is someone who has spent the better part of the last eleven years connecting to people of different levels of sports interest whether they are die-hards or non-fans. It’s what drives my work and what will hopefully drive this long-conceived podcast/live internet show.
As mentioned last Sunday, I will be launching this new show at the end of the month. Two weeks from now, to be precise as the yet-to-be-named show will launch Tuesday April 26th. While it could have been done much, much sooner – a year ago, the idea first came to fruition – I wanted to wait until now as we are entering the best time of year to be a sports fan. Think about what late April brings to us: NBA playoffs, Stanley Cup playoffs, baseball moving through its first month and the NFL Draft. And we’re just getting ready for what should be a great few weeks after that in May and June.
There are going to be a lot of conversations, a lot of debates and honestly, a lot of questions. Maybe this show will be your way to join in the fray, maybe it won’t. Yet, it won’t be boring thanks to some people in the background that are going to make this work. Over the next two weeks, you’ll be introduced to a couple of co-hosts that will help anchor the show from time to time as well as learn a bit about some of the people we’ll interview.
There will be several things that make this podcast/live show “go”, but I can provide three to you right now. For starters, even in this real-time era of texting and social media, it’s still quicker to speak than type. Often, writing becomes a struggle not because of an absence of words, but the greater desire to actually talk. Plenty of times, I wished I was still at my alma mater doing the old show or still volunteering to co-hosting shows on WHCR because something was just too good to not talk about. In this era, why wait when I could do it myself?
Another aspect of this new audio is that I consider myself more of a radio person at heart. There’s an addictiveness to radio that doesn’t exist elsewhere in the media landscape. Ideally, the best programs are about having hosts that are able to speak to listeners and actually listen to their fans to make for better connections. Considering that there’s no social currency on the planet like sports, think of the show as an exchange place.
Finally, what will also make this show work is that there are varied levels of fandom, but nothing that actually bring them all together. Though Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr, I have been able to meet so many cool fans and media personalities – yes, I include bloggers – that are passionate, knowledgeable and far from shy about sharing their opinions. Yet, offline and in-person, there are more people who don’t have the same levels of engagement, but rather are curious about why these games matter in the first place. The better questions come from people who may see the Super Bowl or a Heat/Lakers game as some sort of pop culture event at first, but eventually move beyond culture vulturism – you can think of it like being a sports hipster – and into actually becoming a fan of the sport.
So mark it down, Tuesday April 26th at 9PM Eastern/8PM Central/7PM Mountain/6PM Pacific. One hour of something new, something that might be different, but more than anything else, something fun.
Details of the first show will come as we get closer.
There is not an arena that this is more evident than in the sports world. Though there are similarities to how other interests are covered, what makes sports media as a whole, for the lack of a better term, “go” is that knowledge is constantly questioned, tested and challenged by the consumers. Yet, it seems that more often than not, there’s a lot of posturing, “shocking” and ego-flexing as opposed to engagement. No one is immune to at least one toe-dip in those waters, but the idea that this is the only way to speak publicly on sports tends to keep people away from actually learning more about and actually enjoying the games.
Well, as you can tell, I’m not all-knowing of anything. Tying “Clinkscales” without spell-check is an accomplishment in itself, let alone having some sort of debate about what we’re watching live on TV.
What I am, however, is someone who has spent the better part of the last eleven years connecting to people of different levels of sports interest whether they are die-hards or non-fans. It’s what drives my work and what will hopefully drive this long-conceived podcast/live internet show.
 |
| From the alma mater |
As mentioned last Sunday, I will be launching this new show at the end of the month. Two weeks from now, to be precise as the yet-to-be-named show will launch Tuesday April 26th. While it could have been done much, much sooner – a year ago, the idea first came to fruition – I wanted to wait until now as we are entering the best time of year to be a sports fan. Think about what late April brings to us: NBA playoffs, Stanley Cup playoffs, baseball moving through its first month and the NFL Draft. And we’re just getting ready for what should be a great few weeks after that in May and June.
There are going to be a lot of conversations, a lot of debates and honestly, a lot of questions. Maybe this show will be your way to join in the fray, maybe it won’t. Yet, it won’t be boring thanks to some people in the background that are going to make this work. Over the next two weeks, you’ll be introduced to a couple of co-hosts that will help anchor the show from time to time as well as learn a bit about some of the people we’ll interview.
There will be several things that make this podcast/live show “go”, but I can provide three to you right now. For starters, even in this real-time era of texting and social media, it’s still quicker to speak than type. Often, writing becomes a struggle not because of an absence of words, but the greater desire to actually talk. Plenty of times, I wished I was still at my alma mater doing the old show or still volunteering to co-hosting shows on WHCR because something was just too good to not talk about. In this era, why wait when I could do it myself?
Another aspect of this new audio is that I consider myself more of a radio person at heart. There’s an addictiveness to radio that doesn’t exist elsewhere in the media landscape. Ideally, the best programs are about having hosts that are able to speak to listeners and actually listen to their fans to make for better connections. Considering that there’s no social currency on the planet like sports, think of the show as an exchange place.
Finally, what will also make this show work is that there are varied levels of fandom, but nothing that actually bring them all together. Though Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr, I have been able to meet so many cool fans and media personalities – yes, I include bloggers – that are passionate, knowledgeable and far from shy about sharing their opinions. Yet, offline and in-person, there are more people who don’t have the same levels of engagement, but rather are curious about why these games matter in the first place. The better questions come from people who may see the Super Bowl or a Heat/Lakers game as some sort of pop culture event at first, but eventually move beyond culture vulturism – you can think of it like being a sports hipster – and into actually becoming a fan of the sport.
So mark it down, Tuesday April 26th at 9PM Eastern/8PM Central/7PM Mountain/6PM Pacific. One hour of something new, something that might be different, but more than anything else, something fun.
Details of the first show will come as we get closer.
Sunday, April 3, 2011
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