The 4 groups of people you need to talk to before every football broadcast

Good conversations and communication ahead of game day could pay way greater dividends for your broadcast than those late night hours doing extra study alone

My analyst Cam Cleeland and I never jump on the air without touching base on a number of topics ahead of time.

For today’s installment in our football series, I want to dive into the conversations you should be having before you get to the press box on gameday.

Early in my career, dealing with serious imposter’s syndrome, my prep almost exclusively centered around studying information about the teams and focusing on what I was going to say. Those are two things I could do locked in my room, so I did, with little connection to the outside world.

I hated spending time talking to other people related to the broadcast 1) because I didn’t want to make myself look dumb by asking stupid questions or showing enormous gaps in my knowledge of the games I was covering, and 2) I felt like it was taking away time that could be better spent studying more.

But as I started to build more friends and acquaintences throughout the industry, I realized that the reason people love going to football games is because of the sense of community they feel rooting for the same team together. And going to a football game as a member of a broadcast crew feels much the same way. It’s way better sharing gameday with all the people in the press box than it is if you’re scribbling last second notes on your board and going over notecards with pronunciations.

Plugging in to other people relaxes you, it makes the whole process more fun and enjoyable, and also… those other people are really frickin’ smart, too. There’s much more you will get out of learning from them and hearing their stories than you will reading the entire media guide.

There are tons of different places to gain interesting insight before you go on the air. I’ve gotten to know some referees, some team trainers, some marketing/facilities folks, and a ton of media members. Those are all great resources. But these four are the people you must make a habit out of communicating with well before your mic is hot.