Watch the Media with John Shrader

MAX OLSON is Senior Writer covering college football for The Athletic. He was one of the early hires there, following a stint with ESPN. Max is a Nebraska native, a graduate of the University of Nebraska journalism college. He spends his time covering the games, the portal, the off-field news including NIL and the new world of directly paying college athletes. This interview was recorded May 9, 20...

Michael Serazio researches and writes in the areas of media and communication. He is professor of communications at Boston College. His latest book is "The Authenticity Industries." He's also the author of "The Power of Sports: Media and Spectacle in American Culture." He chats here with John about the condition of sports journalism, the sports media industry, sport and its...

Elijah Herbel is the producer and co-host of "Hail Varsiy Radio," from Hurrdat Media. It is flagshipped at KFOR Radio in Lincoln and heard around the state 4-6 p.m. weekdays.  Elijah started with the show while he was in college at Nebraska and has been with host Chris Schmidt now for about five years. It is fundamentally a show about Huskers sports [with heavy emphasis on football] on t...

RICKY LOPEZ ESPIN is a former soccer player at Creighton. He played professionally in Salt Lake City, Los Angeles, Miami and Fort Lauderdale. He is now a color analyst for a number of television outlets, including MLS, MLS Next Pro, and USL. He’s been broadcasting for about three years and already has aspirations of broadcasting World Cup games.

JOHN BAYLOR will enter his 31st season as the radio voice of the Huskers Volleyball team in Fall 2024. He has added some television work, calling games on News Channel Nebraska for the Omaha Supernovas of the Pro Volleyball Federation. We talk about the Huskers, the new volleyball league and some of the distinctions between doing radio and television.

CHRIS WITTYNGHAM is a young American soccer announcer. He does games for MLS Season Pass on Apple TV+ and Serie A games on Paramount Plus and CBS. He does other soccer announcing as well, including radio for Inter Miami of MLS. He represents the new generation of soccer announcers; he’s young, multilingual, multicultural and learned the business calling hundreds of matches in front of a TV monitor...

JAVIER ORTIZ is the general manager, California for the Latino Media Network. He manages radio stations in Fresno, Los Angeles and Las Vegas. He also manages the company’s relationship with the Los Angeles Dodgers Spanish-language broadcasts.  Ortiz has worked in a number of roles in the radio and television business and has worked in marketing and media with professional sports teams. The Latino...

JOSH PETERSON co-hosts the "Unsportsmanlike Conduct" radio show with John Bishop, 2-6 p.m. weekdays at 1620 The Zone radio in Omaha. They've been together for nearly ten years. Sports talk radio in Omaha appears to be alive and well. Josh says Caitlin Clark is the 'biggest start in college basketball" - woman or man. We also talk about finding the chemistry of radio hosts, t...

John Shrader looks at the changing nature of American soccer broadcasting and the young people who dream of making this their long-term career. They would be the first generation of American announcers who started their careers working only in soccer.

STEVEN CALDWELL is a former professional soccer player – in Scotland, the English Premiere League, English Championship and Major League Soccer. He’s a Scotsman who now plies his trade in Toronto, where he runs an academy; his highest profile work is as a television analyst for TSN. We talk here about the role of the TV analyst, the emergence of soccer in North America, his view of the future of M...

MICHAEL DIXON is the Play by Play voice of the Lincoln Saltdogs of minor league baseball's American Association. This winter [summer Down Under] Michael has been announcing games for the Melbourne Aces of the Australian Baseball League. He talked with me from Melbourne about what the work he's doing, baseball's place in Australian life, and what this opportunity means to his career and...

DAVE JOHNSON is the original voice of DC United of Major League Soccer, and has been for nearly 30 years the radio voice of the NBA’s Washington Wizards. Dave was for the first 27 years of its existence the TV voice of DC United, but that ended when Apple TV+ took over the national television contract for MLS. He talks about not being one of the announcers selected for Apple, the emergence and imp...

:20 Jacob Schrantz and Skylee Nelson with a personal podcast/radio show featuring interviews, discussion and personal observations about recruiting. Interviews in this program include Kelly Mosier of Hudl, Mike Sautter of Hurrdat Sports covering high school sports, and Lincoln Southwest High School athletic director Andrew Sherman. 41:10 Camden Cohn talks about his love for cross country, includin...

:50 SARAH PERSON [19:04] a personal view of her love affair with the Nebraska volleyball team. 19:30 CAMDEN COHN [10:12] a professional profile of Milwaukee Brewers announcer and former Huskers announcer Lane Grindle . 29:40 SKYLEE NELSON [20:11] a personal journey of discovery in sports and in sports media, that will take her next to Bristol, CT. 49:50 ALEX NEILL [9:59] a professional profile of...

GEOFF EXSTROM is a Broadcasting and Sports Media and Communication alum of UNL’s CoJMC. He is now the Director of Communications and Media Relations for the Omaha Supernovas , one of the seven founding members of the Pro Volleyball Federation. In this interview recorded December 16, 2023 he talks about the new team, his new job, the value of volleyball in the state of Nebraska. We also talk about...

MIKE WATTS is one of America’s up-and-coming soccer announcers. He broadcasts USL and NWSL among the more than 200 events he does in a year, mostly on TV but he also does radio for Westwood One. He is the pre-season voice of the Cincinnati Bengals. Mike is an Ohio native who went to college at Fordham, where many national voices were educated, from Vin Scully to Mike Breen.

DAVID BERRI is professor of economics at Southern Utah University. He researches, writes and teaches sports and economics. Here we talk about the College Sports Industry, the incredible amounts of money in college athletics and some context about where they fit into a university budget, NIL and more. [We almost certainly will talk about paying a football coach $78 million to no longer coach for yo...

NICK BADDERS is going into his second year in 2024 as the voice of the Kansas City Royals Triple-A team in Omaha. His father is an Omaha native, his grandfather was a fan of the Kansas City Athletics. Nick is a Northern California native who graduated from the Cronkite School at Arizona State.

JAKE ZIVIN has been a Major League Soccer announcer for more than a decade, first as the voice of the Portland Timbers, and now one of the lead announcers for the Apple TV+ presentation of MLS. He’s a native of Evanston, Illinois, who worked local TV in Missoula, Montana and Eugene, Oregon. He’s one of the new generation - maybe the first generation - of soccer announcers, men and women who can ma...

LIZ MERRILL has been with ESPN for nearly 16 years. She is a senior writer, specializing in long form, investigative and takeout stories. In this interview she talks about her career, how it got started and talks about of her big stories, including Chiefsaholic and former basketball great who is now cloistered nun. She also talks about Nebraska’s Volleyball Day in the summer of 2023, for which she...

ALEXI LALAS is the top soccer analyst for Fox Sports. He works in the studio for many of their soccer productions, including the Men’s and Women’s World Cups. They were in Qatar in November 2022 and Australia/New Zealand in July 2023. He is the lightning rod of their broadcasts. He is outspoken, confident and sometimes controversial. He’s a Hall of Fame player who has forged a nice career in front...

LAUREN MICHELSON has been the sports director of KLKN-TV Channel 8 in Lincoln since May 2022. She is the weeknight sports anchor who shoots, produces, writes and delivers sports at least five days a week. She is a graduate of the University of Missouri journalism school. We talk about getting a career started, being a woman in a male-dominated business, the absolute joy she has in the work, and mu...

TOM SHATEL was hired on September 1, 1991 as the sports columnist of the Omaha World Herald. He has been there since. In this conversation he talks about what he does. Also, Scott Frost, Tom Osborne, Bo Pelini and the importance of facing the sources when you write something critical of them. He talks about what makes him unique, his enjoyment of being at games, with coaches and players, and his l...

ANDY KENDEIGH is the Sports Director at KETV, Channel 7 in Omaha. The station's Newswatch 7 news shows have been number one in the market for many years. He is a veteran of the high school coverage as well as the Huskers. We talk about those things as well as the process of the job and what the audience wants and expects. SHOW NOTES: :20 Hello and Welcome 1:15 Oregon and Washington join Big Te...

SAM MC KEWON is the sports editor of the Omaha World Herald. He also covers Huskers football. He is a rather non-traditional editor in that he writes and reports, including covering the highest-profile team in the state, Nebraska football. He talks about the paper’s relationship with the Lincoln Journal Star, delivery of the news in the 21st century, the Big Ten adding Washington and Oregon. Inter...