Q&A: Famed broadcasters Steiner, Ley discuss the evolution of the sports and sports media industries

Charley Steiner and Bob Ley have near 100 years of mixed expertise working in sports activities broadcasting.

The 2 former ESPN colleagues have been in Peoria on Tuesday because the featured audio system for the sixth annual Steiner Symposium at Bradley College.

The occasion hosted by the eponymous Charley Steiner College of Sports activities Communication featured discussions on a variety of sports-related matters, equivalent to inclusion and variety, and the psychological well being of athletes.

In Half One among a prolonged dialog with WCBU reporter Joe Deacon, Steiner and Ley focus on how the sports activities panorama in sports activities media business have advanced over the previous half century.

This transcript has been edited for readability and brevity.

Joe Deacon: Charley, I am going to begin with you. How have you ever seen the sports activities business and the sports activities media panorama evolve because you began within the enterprise?

Ley: How lengthy have we obtained?!

Steiner: The place shall we start? As we speak now, the symposium is happening. And once I welcomed everyone this morning … I arrived in 1967, and in these days, we have been nonetheless 10-12 years away from cable tv. Once I was a freshman, cable tv was a idea. And as I ran down the panel matters for at present, which included Title IX, gender equality, an entire notion of psychological well being, sports activities entrepreneurship — these matters have been unimaginable, even to speak about in 1967.

So merely every thing has modified, and I reminded the scholars this morning that that is the fiftieth anniversary of Title IX. Fifty years from now, we are going to have a look at the matters of this morning, and they are going to be so antiquated. I do not know what the following 50 years are going to appear to be, but when the earlier 50 years are any indication, we will locations that unimaginably we shall be going — and I inform the parents on a regular basis, one thing that John Madden used to inform his Oakland Raiders earlier than they went out on the sector: ‘Don’t fret in regards to the horse being blind, simply load up the wagon.’ And, the wagon is getting loaded, the horses are blind, and we’re going someplace — however we’ll go there collectively, and that is the most effective half in regards to the symposium, this evolutionary technique of what it’s we’ve achieved and what we will do.

Equally, Bob, what do you see as probably the most vital adjustments or developments in sports activities and sports activities broadcasting over the previous 30 or 40 years?

Ley: Oh, my Lord. I believe simply the variety of platforms the place you’ll be able to attain folks, entertain folks, provide alternative for folks to exhibit their work. Sure, the web, however inside that panoply of platforms on the web, the chance … I communicate to college students at our Middle for Sports activities Media at Seton Corridor, and I inform them that ‘You could have the power to get your work showcased.’ For instance, for those who’re seeking to advance your profession as an undergraduate, you’ll be able to turn out to be your individual enterprise; you’ll be able to create your individual identification, your individual voice.

I believe that’s vital for folks seeking to work within the business, and on the similar time you have a look at all of the leagues who now — in fact, it is de rigueur to have your individual community, and from there you simply marvel, for instance: when the NFL goes to take all of the playing in regards to the NFL in home?

All of which is underneath the tent of how a lot cash has been now created and flows via the world of sports activities. So, I believe that the love affair in American tradition with competitors, with the tales and the figures that we like in sports activities, has by no means been stronger. And it is a development alternative, particularly for the scholars and Charley’s symposium — which I, by the way in which, name ‘Steiner-palooza,’ as a result of it simply goes on yr after yr and is a fabulous alternative — and so to carry to those college students (and) showcase, ‘That is all there for you.’

We did not have these alternatives. You could have these avenues and you’ll go so far as your expertise and skills and need will go, as a result of the know-how’s there; use it and use it properly.

Steiner: We did not have the chance as a result of it hadn’t been invented. So once more, this evolutionary course of, it is outstanding. I inform the story on a regular basis right here, once I arrived, WRBU (Bradley campus radio) was within the pupil middle, throughout the corridor from The Scout, the newspaper, and WRBU consisted of mainly a brush closet with a glass that divided two rooms, one with the microphone and one with the turntables, and that was it, and someplace down the corridor was a UPI teletype machine — that was it. Now taking a look at WCBU public radio — ours was slightly provider present — once more, how this has grown, mushroomed has been fascinating.

Once more, one different subject we’re having at present: sports activities entrepreneurship. Who might have probably imagined that 30, 40, 50 years in the past? However final evening at considered one of our features, we spent a while with a younger fellow who’s doing simply that, creating mainly his personal mini sports activities community, and it is working and I could not be prouder of him.

You type of alluded to considered one of my future questions, however I am going to ask it now. When you’re right here on campus, might you may have ever even dreamed of the profession path that you’d wind up taking?

Steiner: Nicely, I knew what I wished to be once I was 5, 6, 7 years previous: I wished to be the announcer for the Dodgers; the Brooklyn Dodgers, however they moved. So, I all the time knew I wished to be in broadcasting. Once I obtained right here, my sensible hope was perhaps I could make a dwelling doing this. Did I’ve any concept that the trail that I’d find yourself taking would take me up to now? No! Did I ever assume, ‘Oh, I am going to have a faculty named after me?’ Oh, in fact that is why I got here to Bradley in ’67. No, so — this has been a splendidly serendipitous, Gumpian, Zelig-like journey, and right here we’re at present.

Bob, you type of touched on that already, however what sort of message would you give to college students which might be pursuing a profession in sports activities journalism?

Ley: Nicely, a very powerful factor is figuring out how you can write; all of it begins with that. You may speak in regards to the know-how and the varied platforms, and the talents to promote your self and to have your individual web site and what-not and develop your individual voice. However till you understand how to jot down, write accurately, categorical your self — if for no different motive than to promote an concept to somebody, whether or not it is an entree to somebody you need to cowl (or) for those who’re working in establishment, to promote a narrative to your boss. Learn to write, discover ways to talk, after which constructing on accuracy and equity, then develop your individual voice.

I believe one of many alternatives, or virtually risks of the place we’re proper now within the media panorama for those who need to are available in, for those who need to be an web influencer, OK. However you are not going to observe the identical type of profession path that Charley’s speaking about with the scholars right here or we discuss at Seton Corridor. Get the fundamentals down, then develop your voice.

Stephen A. Smith, for instance — a superb pal of mine, who everyone knows and all of us have an concept of what Stephen A. feels like, appears like and is; and one of many nice guys (who) would do something for you. However earlier than Stephen A. Smith was ‘Stephen A. Smith’ as we all know him, Stephen was a beat author at small newspapers, popping out of school in North Carolina. He coated the Sixers, then had a column of the (Philadelphia) Enquirer. You speak to him and he had the hell edited out of him to make him a greater author and communicator, and from then began doing slightly little bit of digital media. All of it was constructed on the fundamentals.

So even somebody is presented and as properly referred to as Stephen, discovered how you can write, discovered how you can talk. After which if you end up feeling you may have your individual voice, transfer out into {the marketplace} and say the stuff you need to say. However it’s based mostly on equity, and accuracy.

Steiner: No matter Bob and I’ve achieved in our careers, it is all predicated on our potential to jot down. After which, it begins within the head, it flows via your coronary heart and comes out of your fingertips. That was the one motive I used to be employed at ESPN in 1988, as a result of I had no tv expertise in any respect. However I used to be a radio man and I might write a bit. And Bob, clearly, might write a bit and theoretically, then we have been in a position to switch these ideas and feelings out of our heads onto the — it was typing paper.

Ley: 5-ply carbon paper, from a typewriter no much less. What are these?

Steiner: Yeah, after which we used to place all that stuff collectively on the teleprompter, then a few of these fellows who ran the teleprompter weren’t superb. However we obtained via it anyway.

Ley: We might inform a few of these tales, if you would like.

Steiner: However writing. Writing is the important thing, I believe.

Because it was talked about earlier, one of many symposium matters at present, the primary one, was relating the fiftieth anniversary of Title IX. That is for both or each of you, however perhaps Bob take it first. Do you assume girls’s sports activities will get an acceptable quantity of consideration in media, and if not what will be achieved to vary that?

Ley: Oh, boy. The reply might be not.

Steiner: That was precisely what I used to be going to say.

Ley: Most likely not, however there’s a lot media now that when you’ve got — to not slough off the problem — however girls’s sports activities, you may have the power as an activist on this space now to take this in your hand and do one thing about it via producing and distributing occasions and what-not. You are still up in opposition to {the marketplace}.

The panel at Charley’s symposium at present was speaking in regards to the concept of placing the lads’s and ladies’s Remaining 4 in the identical metropolis on the similar week. We have now a specific affinity for the ladies’s event; I lived in Connecticut for 40 years, and naturally, there’s the nice (UConn) program there. So I could have an atypical view of girls’s sports activities. However , there must be one thing separate and completely different and distinctive in regards to the girls’s event that ought to stand by itself. You get to {the marketplace} although, how do you dictate that sponsor curiosity be the identical? You want stars, you want promotion, you want storytelling to create that kind of curiosity.

It is gotten higher, however the reply is it must — I’ve obtained two daughters and 4 granddaughters, and , I am not a raving feminist however I believe I’ve obtained some — my eyes are open on this subject. You may’t dictate to {the marketplace}, however you’ll be able to put issues in place that can transfer in the direction of that purpose. So the reply to your query, most likely not.

However what? NIL (identify, picture and likeness compensation) goes to make a distinction, and as we heard at present on the panel — and I would seen that quantity — 6 of the highest 10 NIL groups and/or athletes (in) that new system that enables athletes to capitalize on are girls, which then instantly will get flipped to ‘Nicely, is that as a result of the ladies are enticing by some requirements and what-not?’ So it is a corridor of mirrors, however there’s a capability now via NIL and all these platforms to do one thing about it. Do not go railing at ‘the person,’ paradoxically, to vary it. Change it your self. You could have a voice in it.

Steiner: Going again to your preliminary query about how the panorama has modified so dramatically, I mentioned this morning once I welcomed everyone in that that is the fiftieth anniversary of Title IX. Once I obtained right here there was no ‘title,’ a lot much less Title IX. So watching our — I hate to make use of the phrase, however — watching our society evolve and the way we work together, and you have got {the marketplace} (and) the appropriate factor to do, the financially proper factor to do typically should not one and the identical. So I am with Bob: yeah, most likely.

You guys additionally talked about playing earlier –

Ley: I am shocked that there is playing!

We’re seeing now clearly extra betting strains mentioned throughout broadcasts. Do you see this as a optimistic or a detrimental improvement for sports activities broadcasting?

Ley: Hell, it’s detrimental, however there’s nothing you are able to do about it. It is one of many nice hypocrisies on each degree in sports activities. Begin with Pete Rose. Let’s put apart his private conduct, which is abhorrent, and simply consider the truth that he was banned for playing on baseball — mendacity about it, however what-not. And naturally he is written his attraction to (MLB commissioner) Rob Manfred. However he is now banned from the sport that in every single place you go is plastered with playing advertisements in baseball parks.

Begin with the truth that the NFL — up till about three years in the past, till the Supreme Courtroom resolution—– handled playing like a mortal sin, like a deadly illness, like one thing to be stored at bay like leprosy. Now they’ve embraced it, and like I mentioned earlier, I do not know why they have not taken all of it in-house. It is not good, however it’s what it’s, and so it is out in entrance on the desk.

I would by no means positioned a sports activities guess in my life exterior of Las Vegas, and now I’ve obtained a Caesars’ (Palace) app on my telephone — considered one of our houses is in New York, so it is geo-blocked. I put $100 down this yr (and) I am going to inform you how corrosive it’s. I had like a $20 parlay occurring the Mets this yr, my boys, and considered one of it needed to do with run totals. One half of the parlay had come — I am speaking about profitable 50 bucks right here — and for the opposite half to come back in, we would have liked one other run to be scored the sport. The Mets have been main by three runs within the high of the ninth inning and in comes (nearer Edwin) Diaz, and I felt good as a result of he gave up a solo house run. That is incorrect. That is incorrect, and I mentioned, ‘Boy, that is, that is,’ — now it gave me a window onto the lure, onto the motion, onto that boiling within the blood. So it is right here and (there’s) nothing you are able to do about it, and but it is nonetheless state by state. California simply voted it down — what the heck, Charley, was your house state excited about?

Steiner: What I used to be. I voted in opposition to it.

Ley: I can see you voting in opposition to it, however I believe popularly I could not perceive — it wasn’t even shut, proper?

Steiner: No, they obtained like 42%; it was it was a shellacking.

I hate it. I completely hate it. I do not recall ever having a bet — oh, I did make a guess in 1960 once I was 11 years previous and I assumed the Yankees have been going to beat the Pirates within the World Sequence. I used to be having a piano lesson on the seventh recreation of the World Sequence, and I used to be taking part in ‘On Prime of Previous Smokey’ as a result of my piano instructor wouldn’t give me the break day for the seventh recreation.

(NOTE: Pittsburgh’s Invoice Mazeroski hit a house run within the backside of the ninth inning to present the Pirates the World Sequence championship).

I am practising ‘On Prime of Previous Smokey,’ and the child who lived down the road from me who was rooting for the Pirates: “Mazeroski simply hit a house run!” — this was years earlier than it was known as a ‘walk-off’ — and I misplaced a greenback, and it was additionally my final piano lesson as a result of I unleashed each curse phrases that I used to be conscious of at my piano instructor and that was the primary and final guess of my life.

Charley, and Bob type of touched on it slightly bit, with the rise of the web and social media and the leagues having their very own networks and issues getting so unfold out, it looks like the sports activities fan viewers is much less reliant on a present like SportsCenter than they have been perhaps within the ’80s and ’90s while you guys hosted. How do you assume that is impacted sports activities programming basically?

Steiner: Nicely, again within the halcyon days after we have been doing it, there was no (sensible) telephone. So they might activate Bob and Robin (Roberts) and me at 6 o’clock, and Keith (Olbermann) and Dan (Patrick) at 11 o’clock to search out out what occurred throughout the day. We have been the sports activities information of file, and for lack of a greater time period, appointment tv for sports activities followers.

Because the years went on and the evolution of the Web, social media, the telephone SportsCenter has by no means been in a position to — and I am undecided they’ll — determine how you can program the immediacy of a telephone. Abruptly, you may have a notification; now who has received, or now who has been traded, or who has been damage. We used to, theoretically, break that information to the viewer across the nation. By the point they get on the air now, it is already previous information.

Ley: That is simply raises the coin, although, of writing. So for those who’re doing SportsCenter now, and it is delivered, sure, on cable if you have not reduce the twine, or direct to shopper streaming or no matter, why would you watch? Nicely, there are a variety of good causes. Individuals our age will say to us — and I am positive you get this, Charley — ahh, it is not the present it was. Nicely, it may possibly’t be the present it was. It will possibly’t be the community or the corporate it was; it has needed to evolve.

However for those who’re showing on SportsCenter now, here is the chance to make your writing based mostly on factual accuracy and well-grounded opinions. Make it matter, that is what you’ll be able to provide. You are not providing the highlights; the highlights are in your telephone, the information is in your telephone, that commerce notification is in your telephone. However considerate dialogue, good interviewing and nice observations, that again will be distinctive and that is what you’ll be able to provide.

However it’s an evolving market, and it is one thing — I imply, I inform you, now I have been away from the corporate for 4 years, and I nonetheless proceed to tip my hat and marvel on the method it adapts, continues to adapt, and it has to. This entire dialog is in regards to the adjustments, and so they have achieved a superb job however it’s a persevering with problem. However I am going to inform you this, there is not an organization on the planet in communications that would not need ESPN’s challenges due to they’re the challenges of being a frontrunner and persevering with on high.

Steiner: After we have been doing SportsCenter, it was a every day information present. I assume taking a look at SportsCenter now, if I had any vote in any of it — and Lord is aware of I do not; I am 20 years eliminated — I’d make it a every day journal present, so broaden the tales based mostly on the written expertise of the varied anchors as a result of, once more, the scores are fairly well-known by the point they flip it on; the accidents, no matter, the information of the day is already recognized. In order that’s the place writing within the distinctive expertise of the presenters is so vital.

Ley: A lot of what SportsCenter does, particularly throughout the soccer season — as a result of the NFL is the lava that flows via the sports activities tradition and the American tradition; you are not going to cease it, and ESPN invests closely, and rightfully so, as a result of it is the one factor that may carry (an) viewers collectively. However SportsCenter particularly on Mondays with Monday Night time Soccer basically is an 11-hour pregame present, and from a enterprise sense, it is completely the proper resolution as a result of you may have an funding and some huge cash in that broadcast developing tonight and all of the shoulder and ancillary programming needs to be round that and supporting that. And when the video games are good — and up till this final weekend, no person was actually having good video games, however we have (had) some entertaining ones.

You realize, it comes right down to — I’d all the time ask folks (when) I’d communicate with college students or teams, ‘Why can we open the doorways within the morning at ESPN? Is it to place our youngsters via school? Is it to place groceries on the desk?’ No. It is to construct worth for the shareholders of the Walt Disney Company, and the minute you notice that every thing was move from that, and that is the character of American capitalism. Final I checked, it’s a capitalist economic system and we’re there to create worth, and in so doing produce good programming.

Steiner: On the day it was introduced that Cap Cities was promoting ESPN to Disney (NOTE: In July 1995, the Walt Disney Co. introduced plans to accumulate Capital Cities/ABC in a $19 billion merger), Bob and I have been sitting subsequent to at least one one other — once they have been rebuilding the newsroom and we had these cubicles — and Mike Eisner, Michael Eisner, who was then president of Disney, he mentioned — and I am going to always remember this — he mentioned, ‘The crown jewel on this merger acquisition was ESPN.’ Bob and I are sitting as shut as we at the moment are to at least one one other … when was that, 19–

Ley: 1995, he was on Good Morning America when he mentioned that. It’s like, since you hear you are being bought, it’s like, oh, geez. We have been within the technique of transferring, and I used to be like, ‘Oh, I simply purchased a brand new home, what the heck is happening?’

Steiner: And we’re sitting subsequent to at least one one other in cubicles, and I have a look at Bob and he appears at me, and I mentioned, we’re in Bristol, Connecticut, in a concrete bunker sitting in cubicles subsequent to at least one one other and we’re now the crown jewel on this buy. I am going to always remember, it was staggering and only a massive image in regards to the monumental development of ESPN in a brief time period. We have been the final ones to comprehend that it was turning into as massive because it was as a result of we have been sequestered in a small city in central Connecticut doing TV daily.

Ley: See, that was I believe the guts of our success, as a result of there was a lot work to do. You did not preen or go — there was actually not a variety of locations to exit at evening and be acknowledged or see the fruits of the celeb or the success. We stored our head down and did the enterprise, and the tradition — which basically actually has by no means modified — the tradition that has organically grown over 40-plus years, which is we have been the ‘please and thanks’ community.

I bear in mind after we needed to clarify who we have been after we would name out for credentials. We obtained larger than that, we obtained extra profitable than that, however basically everyone — when folks would are available in and say, ‘Nicely, I need to do that, I need to do this, the place am I going to be assigned?’ I mentioned, ‘Loosen up. There’s a lot rattling work right here, you’ll have loads of time to be on the air and get higher and be featured,’ and that is true. In order that work ethic, that tradition that also exists. I believe George Bodenheimer, our former president, beloved throughout his management time period and a superb pal, coined the phrase it is ‘the key sauce.’ The key sauce of ESPN success is the tradition.

Steiner: Yeah.

Look ahead to Half 2 of this prolonged dialog coming Thursday WCBU.org.