In the early years of sports on radio, landing even one sponsor was a challenge. In 1938 (before TV), for instance, four separate national radio networks carried the World Series as a public service! There were no ads at all.
In 1956, after WINS Radio couldn’t sell a single New York Giants sponsorship and didn’t air the first two games of the football season, announcer Les Keiter pleaded for help from the business community on his sports show. The New York Times responded, buying a sponsorship and rescuing the broadcasts in time for game three.
Back then, local MLB broadcasts had three sponsors at best, enabling more time between innings for game commentary. Good for the listener, bad for business!
I recall legendary Yankees play-by-play announcer Phil Rizzuto pitching corporations on air to advertise on game broadcasts. This was in the early ’70s before the eruption of sports marketing. Home Depot wasn’t founded yet, Geico was on the brink of bankruptcy, Southwest Airlines was a fledgling air carrier and FedEx struggled to make payroll.
Confronted by this glaring lack of demand in the ’70s, select, determined and energetic radio sports sellers hit the streets with pitches in their hands and hope in their hearts. Their uncontainable drive and uplifting success spawned needed growth for decades.
I’ve identified a list of hall of fame radio sports sellers and executives, those who prominently led the charge off the mat. This irrepressible group of 10 is recognized here in alphabetical order.
Arthur Adler (New York Yankees)
In 1976, George Steinbrenner commissioned Adler to turn around the Yankees’ unprofitable radio broadcasts. An inveterate seller, Adler sold everything not nailed down, from pitching changes to team batteries and all pauses in between. He rewrote the rulebook, starting with the elimination of product category exclusivity. Radio revenue swelled and Arthur was able to move the games from smallish WMCA to WINS and then to powerhouse WABC. Adler’s unprecedented productivity galvanized radio sports sellers nationwide, propelling a wave of success across the business.
Michael Connolly (ESPN Audio Network)
As ESPN Radio’s longtime head of sales, Connolly built an advertising juggernaut. Challenged by skeptical agencies and advertisers after ESPN Radio’s launch, Connolly and company developed effective “command to action” commercial endorsements by personalities the likes of Mike & Mike and Colin Cowherd. When the network added branded play-by-play, ESPN sellers dug deep in the trenches and unearthed fresh dollars. The industry numbers today are compelling. When Connolly started, network radio sports billed some $30 million overall. The space now does roughly $300 million.
Bob Fromme (Stauffer Communications/Kansas City Royal Radio Network)
Fromme expanded the Royals Radio Network to well over 100 affiliates, in the daunting shadow of the St. Louis Cardinals, historically baseball’s largest radio network. With the help of sales manager Bob Stiegler, he increased billing by cultivating local, regional and national advertisers. Fromme convincingly used narrative case studies when pitching prospects, touting, for instance, the success of a local potato chip sponsor whose annual revenue swelled during the baseball season.
Jamie Hildreth (Houston Astros)
Former Houston manager and longtime broadcaster Larry Dierker called Hildreth “one of baseball’s greatest salesmen in Houston.” He sold baseball as a “conversational sport.” Jamie persuaded advertising prospects by telling them that listeners invite the Astros’ radio announcers into their garages, dens and cars all summer. Hildreth died in his boots at spring training in Florida this past February, engaging in what he loved for 30 years, Astros baseball.
Joel Hollander (WFAN, Westwood One and CBS Radio)
You might say that the Bronx native is the father of sports talk radio, sports’ original form of social media. In 1987, Hollander successfully convinced the powers at Emmis Broadcasting to reformat New York’s WHN Radio from country to all-sports. The call letters were changed to WFAN, America’s first all-sports station. While many predicted the format’s failure, WFAN’s success gave birth to hundreds of all-sports stations across the country. Through Hollander’s sales effort, WFAN reached the $50 million plateau in annual billing in fewer than 10 years. Hollander later ran Westwood One and then CBS Radio, both of which are heavily committed to sports programming.
Jim Host (Host Communications, now IMG College)
The progenitor of the collegiate rights game, Host Communications, now IMG College, started with radio rights to the University of Kentucky. Jim and his team squeezed every last dollar out of UK’s popularity. The company then extended parallel models across the country, buying up rights with obsession and dedication. For years, Host also held the national radio rights to the Final Four and presciently added NCAA corporate partnership programs into the sales mix. Host, as such, planted the seed for the conceptual framework that now generates fantastic revenue by way of the NCAA’s corporate partnership program.
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ESPN bought radio stations in New York, L.A., and Chicago under Traug Keller’s watch.
Photo by: ESPN IMAGES
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Traug Keller (ESPN Audio)
A network radio lifer, reared in sales, Keller runs ESPN Radio, ESPN Deportes and espnradio.com. He presided over ESPN Radio’s growth, which began humbly with only weekend programming in 1991. In the process, Keller signed off on ESPN Radio’s acquisition of network rights to the NBA, NFL, MLB and regular-season college basketball. Under Traug’s watch, too, ESPN purchased radio stations, including in the nation’s top three markets: New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. With his approval these outlets invested in play-by-play rights to the Knicks, Rangers, Jets, Lakers, Rams and USC.
Paul Kelley (Boston Red Sox, Bruins and Boston College)
Curt Gowdy, the legendary voice of the Red Sox and NBC Sports, told me unequivocally that Kelley was the best sports seller he knew. When anchor sponsor Narragansett Beer pulled out of the Sox, no other beer was active in New England play-by-play. So Kelley scrambled, salvaging the broadcast season when he signed Krueger Pilsner on the eve of spring training. In the 1970s, while running tiny WMEX, he shockingly pried the Sox away from powerhouse WHDH and drove sponsorship revenue hard. His Kelley Communications later picked up the rights to Boston College athletics, riding the partnership fruitfully into the 1990s.
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| In the 1980s, Clyde Lear started acquiring collegiate sports rights across the country. |
Clyde Lear (Learfield Communications)
As a grad student in 1972, Lear founded Learfield Communications, a radio network which delivered news actualities to affiliates around Missouri. In the mid ’70s, Lear acquired the radio rights to Mizzou, and in the ’80s he started nailing down collegiate sports rights across the country. On sales calls, Clyde was mesmerizing, convincing advertisers that Learfield’s college sports networks saturate markets large and small. While sports radio served as the early underpinning of the company’s assets, Lear extended Learfield’s business model brilliantly, picking up more than 100 collegiate multimedia and broad marketing rights. Today, Learfield is owned by Atairos Group.
Lewis Schreck (New York Mets, Atlanta Falcons,
Washington Redskins and Sports Talk Radio)
Callow, confident and fresh out of Boston University, Schreck showed me his worn shoes when I first interviewed him at Katz Radio. More than 30 years later, Lewis’ zeal for sports radio hasn’t waned a bit. He still vibrantly oversees the Redskins Radio Network, after making his mark selling sports nationally, heading up radio sales for the Mets and Falcons and running an all-sports station in Washington, D.C. Now Lewis can easily afford a wardrobe of Allen Edmonds’ best. Sports radio is better off for it!
A 40-year industry veteran, David J. Halberstam (halby@halbygroup.com) is author of “The Fundamentals of Sports Media and Sponsorship Sales: Developing New Accounts”
