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Q&A with Adam Gold

Demetri Ravanos

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Adam Gold didn’t invent sports talk in Raleigh, North Carolina, but you could be forgiven for thinking he is the format’s patron saint in town. He has been on hosting sports talk shows in the area for nearly as long as there have been sports talk shows in the area.

You can hear Adam & his partner Joe Ovies each afternoon on 99.9 the Fan. They host one of the most irreverent and welcoming local sports talk shows you will ever hear. Want to know why Coach K can’t get consistent play from a roster full of five star talent? They’ll tell you, but first they’re going to spend ten minutes talking about tacos.

I worked with Adam briefly and spent the first few weeks in the building intimidated by him. He isn’t physically imposing at all. He is supremely confident and always up for a friendly debate.

Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill (or “The Triangle” to those of us that live here) is bitterly divided in its college basketball loyalties, but somehow only in those particular loyalties. Adam explained to me how a sports culture like that has allowed him to create consistently fun content. We also talked about pants and internet videos.

DEMETRI: How did you get to Raleigh?

ADAM: Well, my wife at the time – my practice wife as I call her – had been hired to run the training department at Central Carolina Bank, which was in Durham. We were living in Baltimore, and we decided if I could find a job making $18,000 it was worth it. Between the cheaper cost of living and her salary, all I really had to do was make minimum wage, which I could do delivering pizza if I had to.

I was a producer in Baltimore on the morning show, and there was really nowhere for me to go unless I got a chance to host. So we are in North Carolina, and I am looking through the classified ads at the radio jobs section and I see an opening at WRBZ, which at the time was 850 the Buzz, so I called the PD, a guy named Craig Schwalb.

At the time the station was news, talk and sports. He liked my tape and said that they may have something coming up that I’d be right for. About a week later I got a call saying that they were thinking about going all sports, and I thought “gee, wouldn’t that be perfect?”. They brought me on as a part time employee to do updates. Three an hour for like five hours a day. Then that turned into co-hosting my own show and then my co-host quit on the air. I’m sure you’ve heard that story.

DEMETRI: No.

ADAM: Pat Mellon was his name. He was the afternoon host before it was all sports and they kept him on as the Buzz started to tilt towards sports. He was a sports fan, but not a sports host.

They paired us together in March, and then like six weeks into it, at the end of the show on a Tuesday in May, he just says “Well, I didn’t want to make a big deal out of this, but this is my last day. I’m quitting after the show.”

I really thought he was joking. We had a tendency to be a little silly at the end of the show and find something light to go out on. I told him “Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.” We close the show and as we’re walking out he says “By the way, I wasn’t kidding.”

It was too bad too, because through the first weeks everyone was happy. The word was good on the street. It was good with advertisers. People liked the vibe. I thought we were happy, but he wasn’t happy. It had always been his show. He quit. That was that.

Management told me they were going to do a search. That went on for two ratings books. The ratings went up in each book. So the general manager, who is still my general manager today, Brian Maloney said “The ratings are good. It’s your show. Go get ‘em.”

I know I’m very lucky. I always tell people half the battle in radio is right place and right time. The other half is what you do with it, so I am not overlooking the second half, but you couldn’t have gotten luckier. New town. No prospects. No contacts. And then all the sudden I have my first on air job hosting my own show.

DEMETRI: So, being here as long as you have, how have you watched the Triangle change as a sports market? How have you seen the appetite for sports radio grow?

ADAM: Raleigh was behind the times for sports radio, but I guess kind of everywhere was, because for so long there was just WFAN. Then things slowly started to trickle out mainly in pro towns.

We still argued sports here, but what we had on air was more folksy, positive, “everyone is a fan” deals. I was never afraid to give an opinion. I would never call myself a shock jock, but the market just wasn’t used to hearing someone say “You’re wrong! This is not good.”

This is not to poke fun at a guy like Tony Rigsby, who was in the market for a long time. He just did a different type of show and what I was doing fit with the time. It was the late 90’s. Sports radio was starting to mirror talk radio where it wasn’t positive all the time.

DEMETRI: It was starting to sound like an actual conversation. Things were more genuine.

ADAM: Let’s use the current language. It was becoming more real. So, what I was doing resonated because I was just giving my opinion and trying to have some fun. Even when we were ripping on stuff, we always tried to find the fun angle.

We would pick games with dominant mascot theory, which mascot would win in a fight. It was silly. It was fun. We did it for a year and it ran its course and we moved on to something else, but even something like that is genuine, because you’re poking fun at the people that claim to be experts.

DEMETRI: That is an interesting bit of history, especially when you combine it with just how divided this market is with Duke, Carolina and NC State. People can be so tribal, so I wonder, did you ever question yourself or your style or did you always think “the market needs to catch up to me”?

ADAM: Well, people will tell you that I have never thought I was wrong.

DEMETRI: (LAUGHING) Right, Joe (Ovies, Adam’s co-host) just wanted to make sure I got that on the record.

ADAM: (LAUGHING) It should be on the record.

Seriously though, that doesn’t mean I wasn’t wrong. I just thought it was important that the first goal be to make people laugh, because we aren’t talking about splitting the atom. We aren’t talking about nuclear codes. What we are talking about is purely entertainment. It’s not that it doesn’t matter, but this is purely entertainment, so let’s make people laugh.

I wanted to challenge people’s conventional thinking. I thought that was important on certain elements, and I’ll get into specifics in a moment. But I never faked an opinion to be a contrarian. If I had that opinion, I had it and was willing to stand by it. That way I never had to think back about “well, what did I say about this topic last time?”.

Now, that doesn’t mean I couldn’t change my opinion if presented with new facts. When it came to issues though, I think people respected that I could give an opinion and that I had done the work and research to back it up.

I’ll give you an example. After Latrell Sprewell choked PJ Carlissimo, Spree did a commercial for Converse maybe. I don’t remember the brand, but in the ad he says he was the American dream. And I saw that and thought, “He’s right,” and I knew that was going to make people upset, but we’re living in America. We love second chances and reclamation projects, and the whole point of the ad is “I screwed up.” In that way, Latrell Sprewell was absolutely living the American dream.

I pointed that out on air, and of course you know how that went. So, that was a very explosive type of show. I wanted to make people face why they were so anti-Latrell Sprewell getting a second chance when maybe they would have been a little more sympathetic to another athlete that looked a little more like them.

When Earnhardt died, and people get uncomfortable when I talk NASCAR, because I’m not a fan, I asked openly why not retire the number 3? Now, I’m not crass, I didn’t do this the next day, but people started talking about who would be the next to drive the 3, because it wasn’t Earnhardt’s number. Richard Childress owns the car, so it’s his number. But look, certain numbers don’t belong on the track anymore. NASCAR purists, and there are a lot in North Carolina, couldn’t tell me why the sport doesn’t retire numbers beyond “We’ll run out of numbers.” Give me a break!

DEMETRI: You’ve been here long enough to see the market change from only caring about NASCAR or the ACC to becoming this major transplant destination. We have people that moved here from all over the country. Does that change what is “in bounds” for daily topics?

ADAM: It’s an interesting market. When we talk college basketball, it is a local market. It’s a very small market type of conversation we have.

DEMETRI: How about with hockey?

ADAM: We don’t talk a lot of hockey. If the Canes are a playoff team, we’ll talk about it then. When they are really bad, Alec (Campbell, Adam’s producer and The Fan’s pre-and-postgame host for Carolina Hurricanes broadcasts) and I will do a little crosstalk, but that is it. Day of a game we’ll have the TV play-by-play guy John Forslund on to preview the game, but we don’t set up to talk a lot of hockey.

But with college basketball, that is a local conversation. I never have to talk about any other team in the country or even the conference. It’s Duke, Carolina and NC State. I assume East Carolina has a basketball team. We don’t really care.

Frankly, as a listener, it bugs me when hosts talk about this stuff and waste my time. I really don’t care what (Miami basketball coach) Jim Laranega has to say about his team. He is a perfectly nice gentleman, but I really don’t care. We have other shows on this station that give us that and it is a complete waste of time. It’s not Duke, Carolina or State, so it is a waste of time.

Now, this market is so transient, that we can talk about anything else. If we talk about the NFL, sure it has a Panthers or Washington slant, but for the most part Joe and I are just talking NFL football. We can talk about coaches, quarterbacks, or any of the big personalities. Same with college football. We’ll always start with State, Carolina and Duke, but college football is a national sport, so we will talk about Nick Saban or other national topics.

We’re local mainly just when we talk college basketball, but there are so many people here that didn’t grow up here. We’re a national show when we talk about literally everything else, which is good. I think if we only talked local sports, we would bore each other.

I look at other local hosts, or even Paul Finebaum. I see on Twitter that he is going to talk about Ole Miss recruiting in the middle of March and I think “I would poke my eyes out if that was my show.” I just can’t do that. We mock recruiting here. That’s the only way we talk about it.

DEMETRI: This ties in nicely to something that has become a signature of the show, because a few years ago you and Joe made the decision not to take listener calls on an average day. It has worked out well for you guys and really fits the show. It has worked on the national level for a while, but it’s not a decision a lot of local shows would make. How did you guys come to that decision to break with what sports radio “should be”?

ADAM: Well, there was never a conversation where we decided “Hey, let’s stop taking calls.” We were just having our own conversations, and they were good conversations. We didn’t give the phone number out and we were entertaining ourselves.

Joe and I have been really fortunate to have some really talented and creative producers. And to me it’s even insulting to say Shannon Penn was our producer. Alec Campbell is not just our producer. These guys are just another part of the show. They just happen to have different responsibilities than we do.

So we just started getting creative and we were mixing it up with more benchmark elements. We found things that were entertaining and irreverent. Then we would get back into these conversations with ourselves. We just didn’t need the phone calls. They were honestly the worst part of the show.

If you’re a talented host, I want to hear your opinion and I want you to have as much fun with it as you can. This is going to sound crass, and I don’t mean to sound dismissive of callers, but as a host you use callers. You use callers to create more callers. If 1% of your audience is going to call in, then why would you cater to them?

The majority of listeners are annoyed by callers. Why would you try to annoy your listeners?

I don’t want to sit here and laud the ratings, because I know how volatile they can be and I know how they work. The ratings though have gone up and the show has been better and more successful as we have eliminated callers. And again, it’s not something we set out to do. It just kind of happened.

DEMETRI: So what would get you to take calls? Because it does happen occasionally.

ADAM: Well, we do a segment at the end of each show called Ask Away where we open the phones and the listeners are allowed to ask us anything and we will answer, as long as it isn’t an HR violation or something we can claim attorney/client privilege on. People that get the show know we don’t want to talk sports at the end of the show. We have been talking sports for 4 hours at that point. I mean, unless we’re off on a tangent about pants or something. And that happens a lot.

DEMETRI: Yeah, I think when I filled in for you Joe, Alec and I talked about workout routines for a good 15 minutes.

ADAM: Oh, that will happen a lot. It’s a big part of the show. When Roy Williams wore that multi-colored, striped sweater at his press conference a few weeks ago we talked about the sweater for…I mean for a long time. That’s kinda where we’re at our best.

DEMETRI: So, you are in a market with three sports stations. All three are owned by the same company and the programming on each one is meant to serve the others. So what do you look at as your day to day competition?

ADAM: Our competition is anything that occupies men 25 to 54. In terms of radio that’s country radio, urban radio and NPR. That is our competition in the time slot. But I don’t really think about competition. Man, that sounds really arrogant.

DEMETRI: No, I think that is the right answer, but everyone has an idea of who they expect to see occupying the first and third slots or the second and third slots when the ratings come out.

ADAM: Yeah, it’s a usual cast of characters, right? Lately we’ve been number one in our time slot. Sometimes number two, but it is great. I think that is because we are always changing what we do. It’s rare that things stay the same for a given year.

Frankly, we’re trying to entertain each other. The best compliment you can pay the show is “I’m not a real big sports fan, but I love the way you guys talk about sports.”

We’re always going to talk about issues before we talk about games. I am not going to preview a damn thing. We make jokes about breaking stuff down. Thursdays during the football season we’ll predict the stupidest storylines for the next day. That’s why women and guys who aren’t even sports fans like the show.

I love that. My wife is a hairdresser. I would estimate 30% of her female clients listen to the show. I love that if you take a broad cross-section of our listeners, a big chunk of it would be made up of people that aren’t hardcore sports fans. Those are the people we are probably pulling away from NPR or country radio.

DEMETRI: The company that owns 99.9 the Fan is Capitol Broadcasting, which not only owns the market’s NBC and Fox affiliates, but they also were very quick to adopt the idea of making content exclusively for their digital platforms. How do you think that has grown the show and changed who you’re exposed to?

ADAM: Digital has made some of what I do easier. I cover the Hurricanes for the station. Writing a story after each game would kill me, so instead I’ll prop my phone up and do a four minute video with my thoughts about what the outcome means. It sits right on top of the game story. That makes my life easier.

There have been more podcast opportunities for me. They aren’t lucrative, but that’s not why I do it. I have a weekly Canes podcast. I do a golf podcast every couple of weeks. There was a time when I did a college baseball podcast with John Manuel from Baseball America. I didn’t do it because I was a huge college baseball fan. I did it because I like hanging out with John.

It’s good. We do goofier videos. You gotta be multimedia now and make yourself valuable, otherwise they’ll find someone that can be more valuable.

DEMETRI: If I gave you a magic wand to wave over all of sports radio, what kind of thinking would you want to change in the format?

ADAM: Sports radio and talk radio mirror each other really well. That’s good and bad. Talk radio is, in general, pretty angry. It’s getting angrier too. I sense that happening with sports radio now. People are getting angrier. I hope the way Joe and I do it heads that off.

I will say this. There’s still way too much subtle racism in sports talk. I want that to go away. I don’t want to hear you say Jameis Winston is a running quarterback when he’s not. But he’s black, so he must be a runner, right?

Subtle racism and sexism. I’d love for people to not patronize someone like Lauren Brownlow (99.9 the Fan’s ACC reporter and regular contributor to Adam’s show) when she’s talking about college basketball because she absolutely knows what she is talking about more than I do. I look forward to the day when we don’t have to overcome those barriers, but I think that probably comes along with people being more angry. They don’t want their territory infringed upon. I’m all about new points of view and different points of view and I am intolerant of your intolerance.

DEMETRI: Is that what is going to go at the bottom of the campaign poster?

ADAM: It’s very meta, isn’t it?

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Kim Mulkey Now Has Everyone Anticipating Washington Post Story

I can’t imagine what headline, under normal circumstances, the Washington Post would have to put on a Kim Mulkey story to make me want to read it.

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photo of LSU women's college basketball coach Kim Mulkey
Credit: Dailymail.co.uk

The Washington Post, you might’ve heard, has a story coming out about controversial LSU women’s basketball coach Kim Mulkey. The reason you might’ve heard is because Kim Mulkey told you. The Tigers coach read a fiery prepared statement just before her team started the Women’s NCAA Tournament. In the statement, Mulkey threatened to sue The Post for defamation before the first word was even published.

Now, I’ve never run a public relations firm but that did not seem like a good idea. The Washington Post story on Mulkey is one of the bigger stories in sports right now and nobody even knows what’s in it. The reason the story, apparently unflattering to Mulkey, is even on anyone’s radar screen is Mulkey herself.

It all started with an innocuous social media post by Sports Illustrated’s Pat Forde right in the middle of the most anticipated two days in sports, the NCAA Tournament Round of 64. On his X account, Forde posted: “Hearing some buzz about a big Washington Post story in the works on LSU women’s hoops coach Kim Mulkey, potentially next week. Wagons being circled, etc.”

You know what generally will go unnoticed at 4:00 on the first Friday of the NCAA Tournament? A post on X about a women’s basketball coach. But don’t tell Mulkey, she saw Forde’s post and decided to fight fire with nuclear weaponry. The result: the average person like me now is really interested in what has Mulkey so incensed. By “average person like me” I mean that I can’t imagine what headline, under normal circumstances, the Washington Post would have to put on a Kim Mulkey story to make me want to read it. Maybe:

“LSU Women’s Coach Discovers Ark of the Covenant”

Or:

“Mulkey Reveals True JFK Assassin(s)”

Perhaps:

“Famed Women’s Basketball Coach Reveals the Mystery Behind Slow Drivers in the Left Lane”

Literally any of those catch my attention more than whatever will likely be the Washington Post headline about Mulkey. But now Mulkey is “Mad as Hell and is not going to take this anymore” so I now have an interest I would never before have had in this story. It has been fascinating to watch the online speculation about the subject of the article and all we really know, as of now, is that it will be written by Kent Babb. This is a dream come true for Babb; he writes an article that is, presumably, not flattering about Kim Mulkey and, before it is even published, she gives the article the greatest commercial anyone could give it. Babb couldn’t have entered into a business agreement with Mulkey and had this turn out better for him.

For those who don’t follow Babb, he is a former NFL reporter who now is an award-winning writer for the Washington Post. In his 14 years with The Post, he has written sports features and authored a couple of books. One of those sports features stories was a deep dive into what he viewed as a large inequity in the level of pay for LSU head football coach Brian Kelly and his LSU players. It is this piece Mulkey described as a “hit piece” and, based on that piece, referred to Babb as a “sleazy reporter.” Babb, and many others, resented the fact his story was labeled as a hit piece. In fact, Babb essentially confirmed he was the author Mulkey was referencing when he shared the original article on X with the comment: “Hit piece?”

Whether a printed piece or a recorded interview, I can’t imagine a better promotion for it than the subject of the interview threatening a libel/slander lawsuit, especially before it is even released. That simply screams “This piece is salacious!!” Also, libel and slander suits get settled all the time, right? Of course they don’t, they seem to never even get filed. That little thing called discovery is a scary thing for most public figures.

The NCAA Tournament has been very entertaining, and I think the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight will be terrific. For only the fifth time ever, the top two seeds have advanced to the third round which sets up for a remarkable weekend. For me, I guess it will now include a Washington Post article, not a sentence I’d normally say.

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Andrew Salciunas Aims to Thrive in Morning Drive on 97.5 The Fanatic

“We are two radio guys that kind of know what we’re doing.”

Derek Futterman

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Andrew Salciunas
Courtesy: Beasley Media Group

When 97.5 The Fanatic midday host Anthony Gargano agreed to a deal to contribute to PHLY Sports, a local digital venture within ALLCITY Network, he was promptly suspended by Beasley Media Group and subsequently sued for breach of contract. Although the two sides eventually reached a settlement and officially parted ways, the future of the daypart was still in question. In the interim time period, the station granted Andrew Salciunas the opportunity to lead a four-hour solo program with producer Ray Dunne. Salciunas had served as Gargano’s producer in the midday slot and still has a strong relationship with the sports media personality today despite no longer working together.

The onerous aspect of the situation, however, was in recognizing that Salciunas was being afforded a chance to prove himself as a host in the marketplace. In the past, he had filled in when Gargano took vacations, but it was not for an extended period of time. Although he was familiar with the flow of a midday program, achieving a successful, yet sudden assimilation into a regular timeslot without a partner was an invigorating circumstance.

“I knew that it was going to be a learning experience because it’s one thing to host a show on Saturday or it’s one thing to host a weekly podcast and you have a week’s worth of content at your disposal,” Salciunas said. “It’s another thing to [be] hosting every single day and needing to come up with new ideas and new angles and new twists on things, so it was a challenge knowing that I was going to have to do that for however long the process was going to be.”

Salciunas received help from program director Scott Masteller, a sports radio veteran who has helped elevate brands and nurture budding talent. Several months later, Masteller asked Salciunas how he would feel about working with morning program host John Kincade. Salciunas replied by saying that it was something he would be interested in doing, and he later added that he already wakes up early and could easily work in morning drive. Salciunas was somewhat nonplussed when he discovered that Masteller’s intention was to have him anchor the program rather than Kincade, who has been hosting in the daypart since January 2021.

In the weeks and months ensuing, Salciunas and Kincade were involved in meetings to plan the new program, which officially made its debut on 97.5 The Fanatic last week and is titled Kincade & Salciunas. Both hosts knew about the program for roughly two months, and Salciunas is surprised that it was kept a secret for as long as it was. Outside of their scheduled meetings, Salciunas was able to speak with Kincade between their shows since they occurred after the other as well. From the onset, he wanted to make his thoughts about the program clear to ensure a smooth transition amid a quest to inform and entertain the audience.

“The first thing I told John when they told us that this was the plan moving forward was that, ‘This is going to be our show,’” Salciunas recalled. “Yes, I might be the guy running the ins and outs out of commercial breaks. I’m the guy that brings on the guests; I’m the guy that brings on the callers, but this is our show. We both have ideas, we’re both passionate about Philadelphia sports teams, we’re both high-energy people, we’re both opinionated and we’re also respectful of each other.”

While there is natural disagreement between Salciunas and Kincade on a variety of sports topics, they make sure not to fabricate their discussions and engender debate for the sake of the show. Instead of feigning their contrarian discourse, there is a legitimate willingness to be genuine with their audience while continuing to put radio first. Salciunas, Kincade and show producer Connor Thomas all contribute ideas for the program to appeal to the audience and continue building the show as a whole. Thomas also had familiarity in working with Kincade since he served as an associate producer on his previous morning program.

“I’m not a former journalist; he’s not a former professional athlete,” Salciunas said. “We are two radio guys that kind of know what we’re doing. Even though our opinions might differ on sports-related stuff, we see doing radio in a similar way.”

Upon Kincade officially joining 97.5 The Fanatic, he demonstrated his magnanimity and commitment to his colleagues by offering to take all of them out to lunch individually to learn more about them. It was a gesture that surprised Salciunas and something that stuck with him, ultimately helping familiarize themselves with one another and subsequently creating a viable on-air product.

“He’s one of those guys who likes getting to know people, and I think that’s helped a lot,” Salciunas said. “We already had that sort of knowledge of one another [and] we already had that relationship, and because we’re just both so bought in and both so hungry, that’s made it so much easier that we’re willing to do whatever it takes to make the show work.”

Before arriving at 97.5 The Fanatic, Kincade had worked at sports radio both at the local and national levels while also hosting a podcast with Hall of Fame center and Inside the NBA studio analyst Shaquille O’Neal. Bringing him back to his home marketplace and realizing success in the morning daypart was valuable as the sports media ecosystem underwent stretches of change. Transitioning to the new morning show iteration without colleagues Bob Cooney and Pat Egan presented its challenges, but Salciunas has had no qualms that Kincade was invested to win. As a result, the transition has been relatively simple in terms of building palpable chemistry among the on-air team.

“He believes in anybody that he works with,” Salciunas said of Kincade, “and knowing that somebody has worked that long as long as he has in sports radio that he values the young person’s opinion, not just in sports but in terms of radio, that goes a long way.”

There is constant communication between the morning show team leading up to a program outside of typical pre-show meetings and twice-weekly conversations with their boss. Salciunas arrives at the station well before the start of the program and compiles ideas from the previous day into a document, along with ideas from others that come during their commutes. Additionally, they continuously monitor the news cycle and determine what to address on the air while also interviewing special guests throughout the week.

Effectuating a fully prepared show rundown by 6 a.m. EST has been marginally difficult, along with the fact that it can be difficult to book guests on short notice before sunrise. Because of this, the program frequently outlines its guests early in the week and makes adjustments as necessary while maintaining fealty towards conveying their true, authentic personalities.

“I’m a little bit more energetic on the radio because I understand the entertainment portion of doing what we do and having to properly express myself,” Salciunas said. “I’m probably not going to scream at a bar, but when I converse with callers; when I converse with John [or] producers… that’s who I am as a person. There’s just a microphone in front of me.”

When he first started working at 97.5 The Fanatic as an intern, Salciunas did not have a goal of eventually becoming an on-air talent. He was content with his role as a producer, which was borne out of an internship where he worked with Jon Marks and Steve Vassalotti. Both station members served as mentors that he utilized to gain information and advice, a fortuitous outcome after Salciunas impetuously applied for the opening.

While Salciunas was matriculating at Temple University, he needed at least three internship credits in order to qualify for graduation. Reflecting back on his education days, he does not regard himself as the best student and recognized that he needed to intern with the radio station to set himself apart. Honing his focus in sports media took time since he had varied interests in areas such as reporting, podcasting and play-by-play announcing, but he ultimately gravitated towards the sports radio format during his time in Philadelphia.

Salciunas made a favorable impression on those with 97.5 The Fanatic and ended up being hired as an associate producer where he learned more about the format and its programming. Eric Camille, a former executive producer at the station, is someone Salciunas regards as seminal to his professional development.

“He was the guy that hired me out of my internship, and then once I started working, he really helped me,” Salciunas said. “He kind of took me under his wing and helped me out a lot.”

Once Salciunas was hired as a full-time producer, he began to work with Mike Missanelli on his midday program, providing an invaluable learning experience to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the sports media industry. As a veteran host who has captivated Philadelphia sports fans and media consumers at large, Salciunas noticed that collaborating on Missanelli’s program was a different experience than the other shows he had done. Whereas a morning drive show is oftentimes one of the first points of reaction on a given day, Missanelli knew that he would need to approach his daypart differently and adopted a paradigmatic style implementing second-level topics.

“It’s not just going on the air and reacting to an Eagles loss,” Salciunas explained. “It’s reacting to a storyline within an Eagles loss or reacting to a storyline within an Eagles win that may generate conversation. Trying to figure out topics that generate conversation but are not just the, ‘Oh wow, I’m angry they lost today,’ and give out the phone number. It’s [trying] to find topics that make people think and make yourself think and make the audience think.”

When Missanelli left the station, Salciunas began his stint working with Anthony Gargano where he began occasionally hosting select programs. The rationale behind his decision to go behind the microphone was that when the Eagles won a Super Bowl championship, the station needed someone to host from 2 to 5 a.m. Salciunas decided to volunteer for the program, presuming that it sounded fun. From that shift on, he continued his work as a producer while also refining his craft behind the microphone in a major market. It deviated from a philosophy perpetuated by former program director Matt Nahigian of limiting the amount of time producers were on the air, assuming that consumers listened to hear the hosts.

“Now you have to be a producer,” Salciunas affirmed. “You look at both radio stations in Philadelphia – a lot of the hosts now were former producers, and so you learn so much of the craft and then you figure out your own role. You figure out how you handle yourself as a host, so I think producing first before becoming a talk show host should be the way to go moving forward.”

Beasley Media Group’s 97.5 The Fanatic shares the Philadelphia marketplace with Audacy-owned SportsRadio 94WIP, and both stations have had intense battles in the ratings over the years. Salciunas shared that most people between the two stations have worked with their competitors at some point in their careers, and there is an evident respect that exists between the two entities. With both outlets introducing new morning shows within the last two years though, Salciunas understands there is a chance to gain ground on the WIP Morning Show, which finished ahead in the four Nielsen XTrends quarterly ratings books last year.

“Clearly if somebody’s behind a microphone in Philadelphia, everybody’s talented, and we’re going to do whatever we can to try to bridge that gap a little bit, and we’re seeing some good strides already,” Salciunas said. “I think having a new show is a big part of that trying to grab that initial audience, but then it’s holding on to that initial audience.”

Being able to achieve this outcome, however, requires a commitment to showcasing talent and different personalities. Salciunas referenced how there was a point in John Kincade’s stint hosting mornings in the daypart’s previous iteration where he gained ground on his crosstown competitor Angelo Cataldi with WIP. Kincade, of course, used to work with Cataldi’s show as a contributor and received a chance to take the air while with the outlet.

“I’ve seen the turn of tides of ratings over the years for every show [and] every time slot, so there’s always an opportunity, but that means we always have to be on our game; that means we always have to be doing the best show possible,” Salciunas said. “We can’t go in the next day and say, ‘Wow, that show was really good yesterday. Let’s have some fun today; let’s make this a lighthearted show.’ No, we always have to be thinking about, ‘Alright, what can we do next to put on another great entertaining four-hour radio show?’”

Over the last several years, there have been several leadership changes at 97.5 The Fanatic responsible for overseeing the slate of programming and station operations. Scott Masteller currently leads the outlet, someone in whom Salciunas has confidence that he can continue to elevate the standing of the station. In his earlier years working with 97.5 The Fanatic, Salciunas had an innovative spirit but was discouraged from taking steps to align with the multimedia evolution. For example, when he offered to do a podcast several years ago, someone at the station questioned his judgment and the reasoning behind the idea.

“I was told by someone, ‘What’s the point in doing that? We’re a radio station,’ and I knew back then that that was a mistake to say,” Salciunas explained. “You shouldn’t say, ‘We’re a radio station;’ that was years ago, so seeing that bosses and market managers and hosts and producers all realizing, ‘Alright, we have to adapt,’ that excites me.”

Possessing the background as a producer lends shrewd and calculated judgment on how to include members of the audience into the program. While there are still open phone lines for callers to chime in, the program has introduced a text line and also engages with the audience through the live chat functionality of YouTube. Having Thomas as a producer of the show has helped in this area as well, with Salciunas sharing that he has a strong understanding of how to create and optimize content for various platforms of dissemination.

“We have a great YouTube audience where they basically have their own community all of a sudden,” Salciunas said. “They’re constantly talking about the show, and sometimes we grab what they’re saying on that YouTube feed because that’s another area of today’s new media where you have another avenue to communicate with people.”

As Salciunas grows accustomed to the early start on 97.5 The Fanatic and his new colleagues in morning drive, he is filled with enthusiasm and the prospect of possibility. The radio station has been the only outlet by which he has been employed since the start of his media career, and he hopes to work there for as long as possible. National radio and television intrigue him going forward, but his priority centers on thriving in the new role.

“I want to try to get 97.5 The Fanatic – because it starts in the morning – back up in the map; back in the top five of the ratings books – and that’s going to take some time,” Salciunas said. “We’re a new show – we’re going to have to figure each other out.”

Salciunas expressed that the last year-and-a-half has been “hectic” in the midday daypart, but there has also been excitement surrounding the ephemerality as well. Taking the microphone in a major market with a dedicated sports fanbase such as Philadelphia is a privilege he does not take for granted, and he aspires to continue excelling in the marketplace for years to come.

“I just started, so I’m not thinking about the next step just yet,” Salciunas said. “I want this to last for a long time – for a very long time. If I never have to leave, that would be great.”

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An Ode to the Heart and Soul of Barstool Sports — Frank The Tank

If you can simultaneously be the angriest person on the planet, and also be viewed as completely wholesome, you’re doing something right.

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A photo of Frank the Tank
(Photo: Barstool Sports)

I’ve written in this space in the past that Barstool Sports is often an enigma to me. Outside of some of the brand’s major stars — like Dave Portnoy, Big Cat, PFT, and Kevin Clancy — I struggle to figure out just who does what at the outlet. But there’s one role I don’t question, and that’s the role of Frank The Tank.

I’m a true believer in the “personality hire” theory. If you’re unaware, it’s the idea that, sometimes, you simply hire a high-energy, positive, great-personality employee who might be underqualified for a job, but will keep morale high inside the office.

And while Frank The Tank doesn’t exactly exude positivity — quite the contrary, most often — you can tell that he’s the heart and soul of the company.

If you’re uninitiated, Frank Fleming — obviously known as Frank The Tank — is an often-viral sensation that pulls off one of the most incredible feats you’ll ever see in modern-day sports media.

If you can simultaneously be the angriest person on the planet, and also be viewed as completely wholesome, you’re doing something right. And that, in a nutshell, is Frank The Tank.

Tank makes no bones about his feelings. Ever. If you ask a question, he’s got an answer, a strong take, and generally a well-thought-out one at that.

In fact, he was discovered by Barstool Sports for his now-infamous rant about the New Jersey Transit Commission and its “incompetence.” He shouted in anger inside a transit hub about the public transportation’s inability to properly inform passengers about updates, resulting in him missing a New York Mets game.

And yet, despite his unbridled anger, you can’t help but sympathize and relate to the man.

Maybe Frank’s most endearing quality is his complete and utter lack of what anyone thinks about him. To sound a bit country for a moment, Frank The Tank’s give a damn is busted. He says what he thinks, when he thinks it, and doesn’t care what you think about it. But it’s never intentionally malicious. It might be harsh, but it always comes with an air of honesty rather than venom. He’s never trying to harm whoever he’s criticizing, but just believes in the age-old “Honesty is the best policy” thought process.

I’ve long enjoyed the clips of Frank, whether it was future NFL Hall of Famer J.J. Watt sharing his admiration for the digital star, or the times he’s often ambushed in the office by the outlet’s digital team to ask questions like “Who are the five most overrated athletes of all-time?”, which results in him rattling off a list you can’t believe was concocted on the spot.

Others are hopping on the bandwagon, too. Late last year, Mike Francesa was introduced to The Tank, and you could instantly see the chemistry and connection between the two. (As a side note, I can’t tell you how invested I’d be in a Mike and The Tank sports show. It’d have to be about half an hour because any longer and Francesa might strangle Frank, but it sure would make for great radio.)

Frank Fleming has turned into a content machine at Barstool Sports. The consummate underdog, Frank The Tank really burst onto the scene with his acceptance speech at the company’s award show, shouting “Never give up your dream!” and sharing the story of his previous life as a court clerk before joining the digital outlet.

But his latest content endeavor might be one of the biggest in Barstool history. Frank Fleming used to weigh over 500 pounds. But now after a walking schedule, he has dropped more than 160 pounds.

The company has turned his walks into a content series, where he converses with sports and media stars, with sponsor attachments throughout the videos. Recent walks include Mike Francesa, Scott Van Pelt, and an upcoming episode with former New York Giants running back Saquon Barkley.

I began to realize what Frank The Tank meant to Barstool Sports after one recent walk with the outlet’s founder, Dave Portnoy, who admitted he had pegged the digital star all wrong.

“It’s probably one of the most wrong things that I’ve (said). When we hired you, I put you on an innings count,” Portnoy said, inferring he didn’t want Fleming included in much visual content. “I was dead-ass wrong on that one. Gladly wrong.”

You see, Dave Portnoy admitting he’s wrong about something is about as jarring as hearing a kangaroo order an Oreo McFlurry. It just doesn’t happen. And yet, there was, admitting that even he underestimated one of his biggest stars.

And in his response to that, Fleming shared an optimism and a belief in himself.

“I just wanted to go there, get involved, and show what I can do,” Frank The Tank responded to the company’s founder.

In addition to his walks, Frank The Tank also shares videos of his culinary exploits on his personal YouTube page, which now features nearly 50,000 subscribers. Even my wife enjoys sitting down and seeing what The Tank is going to whip up on each edition of Tank Cooks.

There’s a sense of protection around Fleming from other Barstool personalities. In a company that is often maligned for how it treats each other and those who criticize the outlet, you can tell those at the digital juggernaut look out for Frank.

When his personal phone number was leaked on the internet in 2022, most other employees inside the company would have been inundated with calls and messages because others at the outlet had encouraged the harassment as a practical joke.

But when it happened to Frank, a complete onslaught of messages from bloggers and video and podcast hosts begging those to stop messaging the digital star.

And that, to me, shows the role of Frank The Tank at the often-controversial outlet. He’s rarely, if ever, controversial. He’s humble, he’s honest, he’s angry, and he’s wholesome. Frank The Tank is a virtual walking conundrum, and that alone shows why he’s the heart and soul of Barstool Sports.

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