Watch the Media with John Shrader

ANDREW MARCHAND is Senior Sports Media Columnist for The Athletic, which is a New York Times property.  His work and that of many of his colleagues appears in the NYT. He covered sports media for the New York Post and was a reporter for ESPN. Marchand is well known for breaking news in the sports media space. He is well-connected, hard-working and prolific. He also does work independently, includi...

The sports industry is a massive industry. At the highest levels it is driven by growing media rights revenues. So, it may seem natural that the sports media beat is growing: More sports media reporters covering the expanding sports media business.  This report is based on the following interviews: Ben Strauss, Washington Post Richard Deitsch, The Athletic Andrew Marchand, The Athletic Austin Karp...

JILLIAN MARTIN Huskers bowler with three pro titles December 31, 2024   JILLIAN MARTIN is a junior on Nebraska’s bowling team. She has won three professional tournaments, including two in 2024. The first of her pro titles came when she was only 17 years old, the youngest ever to win on the PWBA tour. She remains an amateur and is spending this winter break bowling with the US National team competi...

JON LEWIS is the creator of Sports Media Watch [SportsMediaWatch.com], a web site that covers the sports media business and its stars and mega-starts. He says Fox Sports signing Tom Brady to a $375 million / ten-year contract was ‘foolish.’ Also, who is the audience, what are the big stories, who moves the needle.  Recorded November 18, 2024

AUSTIN KARP is the Managing Editor, Newsletters for the Sports Business Journal. He co-hosts the Sports Media Podcast for SBJ. Now in his 19th year with SBJ, Karp keeps an eye on the sports media business. He is an expert in analyzing television ratings. These are interesting times to be reporting and writing about sports media, with the growing consumer interest and the massive media deals in the...

For the last ten years ALEXI LALAS has been a studio soccer analyst for Fox Sports. Before that six years at ESPN followed a career as a player and an executive in MLS. Lalas was a World Cup player for the USA. He also played in Italy and MLS. Lalas hosts a podcast State of the Union . This conversation focuses mostly on Lalas’ politics and how they play in his role as a podcaster (not much) and o...

RICHARD DEITSCH covers sports media for The Athletic and hosts the popular Sports Media Podcast. He was the first in the sports media podcasting world, creating a pod more than a decade ago when he was a reporter and writer for Sports Illustrated. We talk here about the growing interest in sports media, from reporters and podcasters to the consumers. Recorded October 23, 2024

LARRY PUNTENEY is a state champion bowling coach & a health care consultant AND a sports broadcaster. All at the same time, sort of. An interesting life for a Council Bluffs, Iowa native who has made his way in Lincoln, Nebraska [and beyond.] Recorded October 2, 2024

BEN STRAUSS covers the media business, including the sports business and sports media for the Washington Post, which includes the networks, the RSNs, the personalities and innovators.  He talks about the ‘tenuous’ nature of sports journalism and the strength of sports media.

STEVE PHYSIOC is a now-retired sports broadcaster who will soon be publishing his fifth novel. He was with the KC Royals from 2012 to 2022. He has also broadcast games for the LA Angels, Cincinnati Reds and San Francisco Giants, as well as football and basketball games on various outlets over the years. We talk here about the Royals, writing books, the decency one brings to the business, and the p...

CALLUM WILLIAMS broadcasts soccer for Apple TV's MLS Season Pass, ESPN, CBS, DAZN and other outlets in Europe and around the world. He has broadcast for two MLS clubs Sporting Kansas City and Minnesota United. The Birmingham, England native first came to the US in 2011 as a 21-year-old just to see what it was like living and working in the US. He went home for a few years but is now firmly com...

JACOB PADILLA has been covering sports in Nebraska for about a decade, since graduating from Creighton. He covers Nebraska volleyball, Creighton men’s basketball and high schools sports. Jacob talks about the Huskers annual hunt for a national VB title, its coach John Cook and the recent ESPN E60 documentary about the team. Recorded August 26, 2024

STU POSPISIL has been a sportswriter at the Omaha World Herald since the early 1980s. He was the 2022 Nebraska Sports Writer of the Year, from the National Sports Media Association.  Here in 2024, Pospisil starts his 41st season covering high school sports for the biggest newspaper brand in Nebraska. He provides insights into how the coverage is put together; how to keep track of about 300 high sc...

JEN KARSON STRAUSS is Director of the ESPN E60 documentary “No Place Like Nebraska,” which airs August 25, 2024 at 5:00 p.m. ET on ESPN and will then be available on ESPN+. This is the story of a Nebraska volleyball season that started with 92,003 fans at Memorial Stadium and ended with a loss in the NCAA title game in Tampa.  This conversation focuses on how she and her colleagues put this projec...

DENNIS DODD has been with CBS Sports since 1998, reporting on college football. We chat here about the upcoming season, the biggest story [it's the playoffs!], the national picture, the two big conferences, the changing nature of the business, Scott Frost, Huskers and Matt Rhule, and more. Interview Recorded August 14, 2024

CHRIS SCHMIDT co-hosts the Morning News for three hours at KFOR radio in Lincoln and the Hail Varsity program, two hours of sports talk in the afternoons on KFOR and other stations around Nebraska. He also is part of three podcasts talking about sports in various formats. He does more than 25 hours of live radio and streaming every week. We talk about the challenges, covering the Huskers, the upco...

DAVID BERRI teaches economics at Southern Utah University. He is the author, with Nefertitii Walker of UMass-Amherst, of the new book “Slaying the Trolls: Why the trolls are very, very wrong about women and sports.”  This is a conversation about that book and its content, which looks at women in sports, including the biases, the challenges, the opportunities, the history. RECORDED August 9, 2024

MICHAEL BRUNTZ has covered Huskers football for CBS Sports's Husker 247 since 2011. In 2024 he starts his 18th season reporting on the Huskers. He attended and wrote about the Big Ten Media days in Indianapolis in late July 2024. We talk about that, the coverage of the Huskers and the prospects for the team in Matt Rhule’s second season as head coach.  Look for the question about 46 minutes in...

NICK BADDERS is the Broadcast and Media Manager for the Omaha Stormchasers, the Royals AAA team in the International League. He’s in his second season with the Chasers. We talk about his progress as an announcer, what he has learned in 18 months on the job in Omaha. The Bay Area native also has some thoughts about the Oakland Athletics moving as well as calling games remotely.

CONNOR CLARK is in his first year as the broadcasting and media relations manager of the American Association's Lincoln Saltdogs baseball team. He spent two summers in college working with the former PxP announcer Michael Dixon. Clark graduated from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in May 2024. We chat here about the job, about getting started in the profession, about his long-term professio...

MOLLY ROBINSON is co-host of the midday program “Three Man Front” on WJOX Radio in Birmingham, Alabama. She was on the scene when MLB celebrated Negro Leagues baseball and Willie Mays, with the Giants and Cubs playing at Rickwood Field.  The Nebraska graduate and Alabama native talks about her first full time radio job and the impact the game and festivities had on her and her workmates.   Recorde...

DOUG DUDA - the 2022 Nebraska Sportscaster of the year - is the Sports Director of ESPN Tri-Cities in Kearney, Nebraska where he has been for about 27 years. He's worked in Central Nebraska in 'local' radio for more than 35 years. We talk about what a guy does in the middle of the summer to keep it lively on his "Doug and Daddy" radio show.

AARON OBERHOLSER has been an analyst and on-course reporter for NBC’s Golf Channel since 2013. He’s a former PGA Tour player whose first win came at the Pebble Beach National Pro-Am in 2006. As a junior at San Jose State in 1996 he won six college titles, matching the number of a Stanford sophomore named Tiger Woods.  Aaron worked the US Open for NBC and the Golf Channel and much of this conversat...

JACQUI OATLEY has quickly become a fixture in American soccer broadcasting. On Fox Sports, she worked the Men's World Cup in Qatar in 2022 and the Women's World Cup in Australia/New Zealand in 2023. Oatley is doing the Euros 2024 this summer on Fox Sports. She is the lead voice on CBS Sports for the NWSL. The native of Wolverhampton continues to do the EPL and much more TV and radio work i...

GEOFF EXSTROM is the Director of Communications and Media Relations for the Omaha Supernovas of the Professional Volleyball Federation. In his first season as the media relations director, in the first season of the league’s existence Omaha won the championship. We chatted before the season about his new gig. This is an update of a kind of what-did-you-learn conversation. This interview was record...