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Even After Radio Hall of Fame Honor, Suzyn Waldman Looks Forward

WFAN recently celebrated its 35th anniversary, but that’s not something that Waldman spends too much time reflecting on.

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Yankees radio broadcaster Suzyn Waldman was at Citi Field on July 26th getting ready to broadcast a Subway Series game between the Yankees and Mets. A day earlier, Waldman was elected to the Radio Hall of Fame and sometimes that type of attention can, admittedly, make her feel a bit uncomfortable.

“At first, I was really embarrassed because I’m not good at this,” said Waldman. “I don’t take compliments well and I don’t take awards well. I just don’t. The first time it got to me…that I actually thought it was pretty cool, there were two little boys at Citi Field…

Those two little boys, with photos of Waldman in hand, saw her on the field and asked her a question.

“They asked me to sign “Suzyn Waldman Radio Hall of Fame 2022” and I did,” said Waldman.  “I just smiled and then more little boys asked me to do that.”  

Waldman, along with “Broadway” Bill Lee, Carol Miller, Chris “Mad Dog” Russo, Ellen K, Jeff Smulyan, Lon Helton, Marv Dyson, and Walt “Baby” Love, make up the Class of 2022 for the Radio Hall of Fame and will be inducted at a ceremony on November 1st at the Radisson Blu Aqua Hotel in Chicago.

Waldman, born in the Boston suburb of Newton, Massachusetts, was the first voice heard on WFAN in New York when the station launched on July 1st, 1987. She started as an update anchor before becoming a beat reporter for the Yankees and Knicks and the co-host of WFAN’s
mid-day talk show. In the mid 1990s, Waldman did some television play-by-play for Yankees games on WPIX and in 2002 she became the clubhouse reporter for Yankees telecasts when the YES Network launched.

This is Waldman’s 36th season covering the Yankees and her 18th in the radio booth, a run that started in 2005 when she became the first female full-time Major League Baseball broadcaster.

She decided to take a look at the names that are currently in the Hall of Fame, specifically individuals that she will forever be listed next to.

“Some of the W’s are Orson Wells and Walter Winchell…people that changed the industry,” said Waldman. “I get a little embarrassed…I’m not good at this but I’m really happy.”

Waldman has also changed the industry.

She may have smiled when those two little boys asked her to sign those photos, but Waldman can also take a lot of pride in the fact that she has been a trailblazer in the broadcasting business and an inspiration to a lot of young girls who aspire, not only to be sportscasters but those who want to have a career in broadcasting.

Like the young woman who just started working at a New York television station who approached Waldman at the Subway Series and just wanted to meet her.

“She stopped me and was shaking,” said Waldman. “The greatest thing is that all of these young women that are out there.”

Waldman pointed out that there are seven women that she can think of off the top of her head that are currently doing minor league baseball play-by-play and that there have been young female sports writers that have come up to her to share their stories about how she inspired them.

For many years, young boys were inspired to be sportscasters by watching and listening to the likes of Marv Albert, Al Michaels, Vin Scully, Bob Costas, and Joe Buck but now there are female sportscasters, like Waldman, who have broken down barriers and are giving young girls a good reason to follow their dreams.

“When I’ve met them, they’ve said to me I was in my car with my Mom and Dad when I was a very little girl and they were listening to Yankee games and there you were,” said Waldman. “These young women never knew this was something that they couldn’t do because I was there and we’re in the third generation of that now. It’s taken longer than I thought.”

There have certainly been some challenges along the way in terms of women getting opportunities in sports broadcasting.

Waldman thinks back to 1994 when she became the first woman to do a national television baseball broadcast when she did a game for The Baseball Network. With that milestone came a ton of interviews that she had to do with media outlets around the country including Philadelphia.

It was during an interview with a former Philadelphia Eagle on a radio talk show when Waldman received a unique backhanded compliment that she will always remember.

“I’ve listened to you a lot and I don’t like you,” Waldman recalls the former Eagle said. “I don’t like women in sports…I don’t like to listen to you but I was watching the game with my 8-year-old daughter and she was watching and I looked at her and thought this is something she’s never going to know that she cannot do because there you are.”

Throughout her career, Waldman has experienced the highest of highs in broadcasting but has also been on the receiving end of insults and cruel intentions from people who then tend to have a short memory.

And many of these people were co-workers.

“First people laugh at you, then they make your life miserable and then they go ‘oh yeah that’s the way it is’ like it’s always been like that but it’s not always been like this,” said Waldman. 

It hasn’t always been easy for women in broadcasting and as Waldman — along with many others — can attest to nothing is perfect today. But it’s mind-boggling to think about what Waldman had to endure when WFAN went on the air in 1987.

She remembers how badly she was treated by some of her colleagues.

“I think about those first terrible days at ‘FAN,” said Waldman. “I had been in theatre all my life and it was either you get the part or you don’t. They either like you or they don’t.  You don’t have people at your own station backstabbing you and people at your own station changing your tapes to make you look like an idiot.”

There was also this feeling that some players were not all that comfortable with Waldman being in the clubhouse and locker room. That was nothing compared to some of the other nonsense that Waldman had to endure.

“The stuff with players is very overblown,” said Waldman. “It’s much worse when you know that somebody out there is trying to kill you because you have a Boston accent and you’re trying to talk about the New York Yankees. That’s worse and it’s also worse when the people
that you work with don’t talk to you and think that you’re a joke and the people at your own station put you down for years and years and years.”

While all of this was happening, Waldman had one very important person in her corner: Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, who passed away in 2010.

The two had a special relationship and he certainly would have relished the moment when Suzyn was elected to the Hall of Fame.

“I think about George Steinbrenner a lot,” said Waldman. “This is something that when I heard that…I remember thinking George would be so proud because he wanted this since ’88.  I just wish he were here.” 

Waldman certainly endeared herself to “The Boss” with her reporting but she also was the driving force behind the reconciliation of Steinbrenner and Yankees Hall of Fame catcher Yogi Berra. George had fired Yogi as Yankees manager 16 games into the 1985 season and the news was delivered to Berra, not by George, but by Steinbrenner advisor Clyde King.

Yogi vowed never to step foot into Yankee Stadium again, but a grudge that lasted almost 14 years ended in 1999 when Waldman facilitated a reunion between the two at the Yogi Berra Museum in New Jersey.

“I’m hoping that my thank you to him was the George and Yogi thing because I know he wanted that very badly,” said Waldman.

“Whatever I did to prove to him that I was serious about this…this is in ’87 and ’88…In 1988, I remember him saying to me ‘Waldman, one of these days I’m going to make a statement about women in sports.  You’re it and I hope you can take it’ (the criticism). He knew what was coming.  I didn’t know. But there was always George who said ‘if you can take it, you’re going to make it’.”

And made it she did.

And she has outlasted every single person on the original WFAN roster.

“I’m keenly aware that I was the first person they tried to fire and I’m the only one left which I think is hysterical actually that I outlived everybody,” said Waldman.

WFAN recently celebrated its 35th anniversary, but that’s not something that Waldman spends too much time reflecting on.

“I don’t think about it at all because once you start looking back, you’re not going forward,” said Waldman. 

Waldman does think about covering the 1989 World Series between the A’s and Giants and her reporting on the earthquake that was a defining moment in her career. She has always been a great reporter and a storyteller, but that’s not how her WFAN career began. She started as an update anchor and she knew that if she was going to have an impact on how WFAN was going to evolve, it was not going to be reading the news…it was going to be going out in the field and reporting the news.

“I was doing updates which I despised and wasn’t very good at,” said Waldman.

She went to the program director at the time and talked about how WFAN had newspaper writers covering the local teams for the station and that it would be a better idea for her to go out and cover games and press conferences.

“Give me a tape recorder and let me go,” is what Waldman told the program director. “I was the first electronic beat writer.  That’s how that started and they said ‘oh, this works’. The writers knew all of a sudden ‘uh oh she can put something on the air at 2 o’clock in the morning and I can’t’.”  

And the rest is history. Radio Hall of Fame history.

But along the way, there was never that moment where she felt that everything was going to be okay.

Because it can all disappear in a New York minute.

“I’ve never had that moment,” said Waldman. “I see things going backward in a lot of ways for women.  I’m very driven and I’m very aware that it can all be taken away in two seconds if some guy says that’s enough.” 

During her storied career, Waldman has covered five Yankees World Series championships and there’s certainly the hope that they can contend for another title this year. She loves her job and the impact that she continues to make on young girls who now have that dream to be the next Suzyn Waldman.

But, is there something in the business that she still hopes to accomplish?

“This is a big world,” said Waldman. “There’s always something to do. Right now I like this a lot and there’s still more to do. There are more little girls…somewhere there’s a little girl out there who is talking into a tape recorder or whatever they use now and her father is telling her or someone is telling her you can’t do that you’re a little girl. That hasn’t stopped. Somewhere out there there’s somebody that needs to hear a female voice on Yankees radio.”

To steal the spirit of a line from Yankees play-by-play voice John Sterling, Suzyn Waldman’s longtime friend, and broadcast partner…“that’s a Radio Hall of Fame career, Suzyn!”

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The 2024 BSM Summit Was a Great Success But The Advertising Industry Needs to Step Up in 2025

“I’m calling on advertising professionals to step it up in 2025. This conference and room benefits you too.”

Jason Barrett

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The BSM Summit is in the books. I’m physically and mentally exhausted from it but that’s the price to pay to deliver a successful event. I want to thank all who attended, supported, and spoke at the show. We’ve done six of these conferences and they get better each year. I can always find things to improve but last week’s show was a great success. We now have to decide if we’ll head to Chicago, Las Vegas, Los Angeles or San Francisco in 2025. To vote, click here.

Before you ask, we recorded the entire show and will make all sessions available via on-demand. Those who were in NYC will receive a free login to the show. Those who didn’t attend and wish to see what they missed will be able to purchase on-demand tickets for $99.99. Once everything is ready, I’ll alert the masses.

Looking back, we had a strong mix of sessions. The Power Panel, Game Changers, Strictly Business, Riding The Revenue Train and Experts on the Digital Expressway all offered great insight on what executives are dealing with and where growth is coming from. We also had Annie Agar, Andrew Marchand, Damon Amendolara, Bonnie Bernstein, Maggie Gray, Kevin Clark, Dave Greene, Mike McVay and Bruce Gilbert host sessions, which kept the show fresh and interesting. Bringing together Nick Wright, Danny Parkins, Andrew Fillipponi and Damon Amendolara together was another highlight for the show.

I hosted a number of sessions too with some incredible industry titans. Caroline Beasley was excellent, offering honest feedback from the CEO’s chair. She was the first radio CEO to appear and speak at the BSM Summit. David Field, Bob Pittman, Mary Berner, Bill Wilson, Jennifer Witz and others, I’ll see you down the road.

Caroline explained why the radio business is viable despite what Bell Media said, however she reminded folks that the industry has been healthier. We’ve got to work to get back to that level. Her insights on how she manages Boston and Philadelphia differently, Beasley’s approach to diversity, the challenges with measurement, and the rise of artificial intelligence were all valuable. It was great talking business with someone as accomplished as Caroline.

I was also blessed to reconnect with John Skipper. We had a blast talking business in 2022 and this time was even better. Whether we got into Meadowlark Media’s progress, industry layoffs, the state of podcasting, the ESPN-FOX-WBD streaming deal or artificial intelligence, John was ready to share insightful answers. My favorite line though was when I asked him about AI. In classic John fashion he said, ‘I’m 68. By the time this takes off, hopefully someone else can deal with this shit.’ I know many who feel the same way.

Among the talent talks I hosted, Michael Kay and Peter Rosenberg were tremendous. Michael admitted that going through GM and PD changes has been hard, and the move away from the FM dial and Nielsen will take time to get used to. At the same time, he’s impressed with Good Karma Brands and wouldn’t have signed another contract with the company if he didn’t have complete trust in their people and approach. Given how many GKB folks were in the room, Michael could have given politically correct answers. Instead, he was honest. We need more of that. Playing it safe doesn’t address issues. Honest dialogue does.

Last but certainly not least, Stephen A. Smith and Paul Heyman were simply outstanding. I’ll start with Stephen A.. I’ve been looking to sit down and chat with him at the Summit for six years. The timing worked out, and I’m glad it did. He was electric. Having Stephen A. and Paul cross paths backstage too was great. The tweet they put out blew up.

Before going on stage with Stephen A., I was ready to do 35-minutes. I know he has a ton on his plate, so I didn’t want to abuse his time. As we’re heading out, he says ‘Let’s do 45. I’m good with 45.’ I said, ’45 it is’. We took the stage, discussed his schedule and prep, knowing when First Take needs to pivot, the rise of his digital show, his future plans, management diversity, etc., and as I’m about to wrap with questions, he says ‘I’ve got time for 3 more questions.’ An hour later, we end day one. That was awesome. It’s easy to see why he’s the best in the game.

What a treat it was to have Paul Heyman with us. His insight on creating promos, and writing shows as both a leader and underdog were outstanding. Even better was his feedback on the Tribal Chief character of Roman Reigns being born from Marlon Brando’s Apocalypse Now. I could’ve talked business with Paul for another hour. He also promoted his appearance prior to the Summit, sharing posts with millions of followers and getting the WWE behind it. I never expect that but when it happens, it says a lot about an individual. The WWE has to get ‘The Wiseman’ at more industry conferences. He gets the business and makes the room smarter.

The session I received the best feedback on that wasn’t tied to stars was ‘Making Sports Radio Work on YouTube‘. Make sure to read Dave Greene’s column today about it. I knew the session was going to be a hit as soon as I saw Phil Mackey and Matt Moscona’s slides. They did a great job showing what does and doesn’t work on YouTube and how to monetize the platform. When I said last month that the mid-market voters screwed up leaving Moscona off the BSM Top 20 PD list, this was why. What these guys are doing in Minneapolis and Baton Rouge should be paid attention to. They’re crushing it and doing so without a large corporate push.

Another session that was popular was ‘Secrets to Social Success‘. Annie Agar, Omar Raja, Steve Braband and Josh Fendrick know the social space and were excellent sharing thoughts on how to create impact on specific platforms. I also love how the session ended with Logan Swaim of The Volume asking the group to draft their top 2 platforms from a group of X, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube. The one surprise, no one picked Facebook.

This Summit had stronger attendance from GM’s than ever before, almost 300 total people registered, and a ton of different companies were in attendance. One of those groups, Good Karma Brands continues to impress me by how they use the event to unite their teams and use the gathering to make their local markets better. I was thrilled to be back at the Ailey Theater, the home of our 2020 show. The stage and screen are huge, and the seating is great. The only challenge was getting people back into the room after they flocked to the hallway to network.

There was though one thing missing at the Summit that I want to see change in the future; stronger representation from the advertising industry.

This conference isn’t just for radio hosts and program directors. It’s for everyone and anyone who works in the media business. We explore ways to make money, grow audience, deliver impact for partners, examine and excel on new platforms, and explore new technology and key changes affecting the media business. These are relevant issues for advertisers/media buyers not just content creators/managers. I tried to offer tickets and speaking opportunities to get media buyers and marketers involved and the response was light. I’m calling on advertising professionals to step it up in 2025. This conference and room benefits you too.

As I drove home with my son, Dylan, he asked ‘how do you even come close to matching this one? Is there anyone left?’ Without hesitating I said, ‘Did you see Dave Portnoy there? Big Cat and PFT? Bill Simmons? Joe Buck? Troy Aikman? Mr. Beast? Mark Cuban? Jim Nantz? Dan Le Batard? David Berson? Adam Silver? Elon Musk? Jeff Bezos? Mark Zuckerberg? Daniel Ek? Tim Cook? The Kelce Brothers? Peyton & Eli? Shaq? Charles Barkley? Bob Costas? Dan Patrick? Gary Vee? He looked at me, cracked a smile and said, ‘I guess there’s always more you can do.’

My next challenge, building the 2024 BNM Summit in Washington D.C. this September. Thanks again to everyone who made time to join us, speak and sponsor the show. It really means a lot.

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Thumbs Up:

Andrew Salciunas: It’s great to see 97.5 The Fanatic giving ‘Choonis’ a bigger opportunity. Andrew did a nice job alongside Anthony Gargano, he was ready to be elevated, and he’s respected by the local competition. Adding him to mornings with John Kincade gives the morning show new energy while adding a new wrinkle to middays. WIP remains the dominant brand in Philadelphia, and these moves don’t guarantee anything changing. However, putting a talented broadcaster with a bright future in a bigger role is a good start.

The Kelce Brothers and Shannon Sharpe: The iHeart Podcast Awards took place last week and two award winners couldn’t have been more deserving. The Kelce Brothers earned the honor for podcast of the year. Shannon Sharpe won Sports Podcast of the Year for his show Club Shay Shay. The Kelce’s and Shannon are blowing up in the digital audio space. iHeart nailed it with these two recipients. Congrats to both. The more they each succeed, the more it’s going to make the athlete creator economy an even bigger part of sports media’s future.

Travis Hancock: Mark Baker from Gastonia, NC is a dedicated listener of WFNZ in Charlotte. The longtime caller and Charlotte sports radio consumer has been in a hospital battling serious health issues which have included needing surgery for a stomach problem, treatment for a heart condition to survive the surgery, and a large, cancerous tumor that could end his life soon.

Rather than offering prayers and hoping for the best, Travis has called on the Charlotte sports community to offer encouragement to lift Mark’s spirits. Tons of current and former Panthers, Hornets, and media personalities have shared uplifting messages for Mr. Baker. One scroll through his feed on X and you’ll see tons of messages from Greg Olsen, Paul Finebaum, Luke Kuechly and many others.

Mark from Gastonia’s road ahead remains unclear. Travis is doing his part to provide words of encouragement to help him get through the day, and raising awareness of his GoFundMe to help cover medical expenses. Here’s to hoping Mark recovers and is able to listen to and call his favorite sports radio station, WFNZ, one more time.

Thumbs Down:

Deadspin: The brand was sold last week by Gizmodo Media Group to a European firm, which plans to take a different approach to content. Deadspin was once a take-no-prisoners brand, stepping on anyone and everyone in their way. But those who fueled that fire to make the brand respected and feared departed. The crew that followed had some of that venom but not as much. Crushing people and reputations may generate attention but eventually flames burn out. When the ones responsible for financing chaos pull the plug, it’s harder to find others hungry to do business with those who made a living trying to take them down.

Diversity Zealots: For 8 years, I’ve written columns about sports media’s diversity challenges. I believe the industry can be better in this area especially in management. It’s a subject I’ve put focus on at Summit’s in three different cities with multiple executives including our latest in NYC. In fact, Jeff Rickard remarked last week how this year’s event had the strongest female representation we’ve ever had, something I’m proud of because we’ve worked hard on it.

More importantly, I continue to help women, and Black and Hispanic professionals get hired in key roles in sports media. Yet there are uninformed people in our business and some who are now on the outside looking in who like to flock to social media when the diversity issue comes up or when they see a poster or panel about our show promoting white people involved in it.

First, rather than running your mouth and sounding stupid, how about doing your homework? A simple look at the show schedule would’ve shown you there were a lot of women taking part. Secondly, how about actually making a difference yourself? Who have you hired? Who have you featured on stage at an industry event or welcomed on to your show to explore the issue further? What exactly are you doing to make things better in the industry besides sitting behind a computer complaining on X or Facebook? It’s easy to spew nonsense but harder to actually solve problems. Stop talking, start doing.

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Stephen A. Smith & Paul Heyman Were Headliners; Phil Mackey & Matt Moscona Steal Headlines

Based on the response most everyone I talked to had about this session, this was the “light bulb moment” for most during the Summit.

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Coming in to the 2024 BSM Summit in New York it was clear who the headliners were going to be. WWE’s Paul Heyman and ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith hit it out of the park with their sessions on Wednesday afternoon. I could listen to the two of them speak for hours.

The way Heyman described feeling a crowd and where to take a promo. The connection you have to have with an audience and the way he can make everyone in a large arena and the millions watching on television feel like he is talking to them, individually. He truly is one of the best television characters of all time.

Stephen A. and his passion for what he does is incredible. Love him or hate him, you watch him, and you are interested in what he has to say. His delivery is part of what makes him so special and on this day, he really captured the room as he talked a lot about what he still feels he wants and needs to do in this business. His confidence and his work ethic can never be questioned.

The keynote conversations with Caroline Beasley and John Skipper were both excellent and Skipper may have had the thought of the week when he said, regarding Artificial Intelligence, “It’s going to create a lot of disruption. I’m still more fond of intelligence that walks with two legs. I am 68 and thinking maybe I can get through life without this sh**”

However, it was the session that came about 35 minutes after Skipper’s conversation with Barrett Media president Jason Barrett, which stole the headlines. This is where SKOR Noth’s Phil Mackey and Matt Moscona of 104.5 ESPN in Baton Rouge did a panel entitled, Making Sports Radio Work on YouTube.

Based on the response most everyone I talked to had about this session, this was the “light bulb moment” for most during the Summit. I know everyone that was in that room to hear the session took something they could use immediately back to their stations, if they were someone who is in a market without a video/YouTube strategy or even for those that already do.

Now, there is a couple of things to dissect here. The first thing is for those without a video/YouTube strategy in 2024, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!? This has been my biggest pet peeve for a long time in that the industry is so slow to react rather than step up and be the leader. You have the content, you have the audience, you have the talent, the talent has the relationships and trust with the audience. Meanwhile, digital content creators came along and built better, stronger relationships with audiences with attribution right on the screen and took millions and millions of dollars in advertising along the way. Then, and only then, did most respond and by then it was too late and it was time to play catch up.

Sorry, that just needed to be said. Don’t even get me started on Podcasting and the missed opportunities there.

I digress. This is why the BSM Summit is held, to share ideas and to learn new things you can implement.

What Phil and Matt did in this panel was break it down very simply. Phil shared five things they have learned since launching on YouTube which included: producing for YouTube, knowing “niches get the riches,” using SEO-friendly headlines, having great thumbnails, and using product placement which has great value for local direct advertisers.

Matt laid out two things very clearly that can make a gigantic difference when it comes to YouTube. The first being a great thumbnail and the other being a great title. He pointed out that YouTube is a search engine, and it is second only to Google in that regard. Therefore, you must think about what your audience is searching for when they are using the platform.

This session was equal parts valuable information and presented in a very simple way for folks to understand and take back for their teams to implement. Many of you will be having YouTube strategy meetings soon (trust me) and my suggestion to you is to do a couple of things. First, if you were not at the BSM Summit I know a replay opportunity will be out soon for you to view on-demand. I highly suggest you do so, not just for this session, but if you do not have a video strategy, this is 35 minutes you need to see.

Secondly, Matt Moscona noted in the presentation that they spent time looking at what the best stations around the country were doing and other digital outlets and how they looked and how they engaged with the audiences, etc. This is important because you should be doing the same thing. So many others have tried, adjusted, tried again, pivoted, tried again and you have the luxury of going to YouTube.com today and seeing where they landed. That would be a suggestion for a first step, go take a look and see what can be done, relatively inexpensively, to create an entirely new revenue stream and the best way possible to engage with and super-serve your audience.

I would highly suggest you start by taking a look at what Phil Mackey and his team at SKOR North are doing as well as what Matt Moscona and his team at 104.5 ESPN in Baton Rouge are doing.

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The Best Thing I Heard This Week

Being in New York most of the week, I wasn’t able to listen to or watch much sports programming. However, I did spend time with several of the brightest minds in our industry. The best thing I heard this week was the amount of positivity around sports radio, sports television and digital sports coverage and conversation.

Yes, there are problems. Oy, are there problems. But there is so much to be looking forward to in this space.

I talked with several young content creators at the BSM Summit, and it was energizing. It was great to hear their enthusiasm for what is going on and I think, frankly, a lot of that has to do with the new companies that have come into the space. These people didn’t spend time in a tired, old radio or television environment where they are content trying to teach old dog’s new tricks. They are working for forward-thinking companies who are allowing them the space, time and resources to create.

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In Case You Missed It

On Friday morning as I was traveling back from New York, I had the chance to read a terrific piece from John Molori, Sports Media is in its Golden Age for Women. John’s column centers on just a few of the women who are succeeding, big time, in sports media today. John highlights Erin Andrews, Pam Oliver, Hannah Storm and Cari Champion while mentioning several others. I am sure John felt like he could go on and on with this column.

John writes, “March is Women’s History Month, and at no time in the history of television have there been more talented and capable women in the sports media field. Viewers are blessed to enjoy the work of time-tested and experienced personalities, and equally fortunate to see an endless stream of young and driven women who want to make a mark in the industry.

“The once male-dominated field has been plowed down like the cornfield in Field of Dreams. In its place is a wide-open and diverse roster of broadcasters whose gifts transcend any gender labels.”

You can read John’s full column by clicking here.

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Field Yates Goes Beyond the Numbers for ESPN NFL Coverage

“No day feels like work for me, and it’s something that has allowed me to meet some incredible people along the way.”

Derek Futterman

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Field Yates
Courtesy: The Measure

With just over one month to go until the 2024 NFL Draft, Field Yates is entering the final stages of his year-round preparation process. Amid an NFL season that concluded with a thrilling Super Bowl resulting in a second-consecutive championship for the Kansas City Chiefs, Yates was balancing real-time coverage with shrewd prognostication and evaluation of the next generation of stars. There has been anticipation regarding who the Chicago Bears will select with the first-overall draft pick and the other franchises thereafter to welcome a new class to the league. For this draft alone, Yates has compiled projections for 322 players that has involved meticulous film study, analyzing quantitative data and interviews with the athletes and their surrounding personnel.

As an NFL insider for ESPN, Yates consistently remains in the know on all things pertaining to the game of football. The new league year begins just after the Super Bowl, and he ensures to enter its confines ready to tackle free agency and the NFL Draft before offseason workouts lead to training camp.

During the season, Yates is in conversation with relevant sources from around the NFL to gather information about additional qualitative considerations that could impact the draft position of a player. He periodically authors mock drafts in articles that outline how he believes the three-day event will play out as well. While Yates and other NFL insiders help fans become more informed and engaged with tentpole events throughout the season, there is a different kind of ambiguity surrounding the NFL Draft that can lead to unexpected outcomes.

“I compare it to studying for – not that I ever took this – but I would say it feels like studying for the LSAT,” Yates explained. “You could study every hour of every day, but ultimately once the actual event begins, there’s specific problems that you have to solve; or in the case of the Draft, I’m going to study more players than are actually drafted, and I’m going to have players in my mind going in certain ranges.”

There are unpredictable occurrences that take place over the course of the NFL and collegiate seasons with the potential to alter the overall draft order. For example, Yates emphasized that most people did not expect LSU quarterback Jayden Daniels to project as a top-five selection entering the season. Yet after a breakout year in which Daniels led college football in quarterback rating and threw for 40 touchdowns and 3,812 yards, he caught the attention of several teams in the early first round.

“He had a remarkable season, so there is this balancing act of sort of taking all the information you had going into a year, but making sure you’re not married to it,” Yates said. “You’ve got to be mindful of how things can change once the season begins, and you sort of have to adjust your board accordingly.”

More than 54 million fans watched last year’s NFL Draft with an average audience equating to 6 million consumers per day. The average viewership figure was up 12% year-over-year, which was a harbinger of things to come for the league’s regular season and playoff slate of games.

Yates was involved in this coverage throughout the year, which included television hosting and analysis, two original podcasts, writing and reporting. Although his endeavors in these media center around football, he brings a different approach as to how he presents the information, imagining the cluster of platforms as if it were an accordion. Writing provides Yates the ability to start and stop, whereas his radio appearances generally last eight to 15 minutes and lead to real-time dissemination of his findings and opinions.

“I always think about every topic through a couple of different prisms, but generally speaking if you have one initial thought that comes to mind, you better have that one ready for TV,” Yates said, “because in TV, sometimes you get 30 seconds on a topic and sometimes you get more, but you better be prepared to have a truncated answer on TV because it’s the one medium where you have this finite period of time that is usually just one show window.”

During the previous summer, Yates hosted ESPN’s daily studio program, NFL Live, while Laura Rutledge was on maternity leave. Being able to fill in for Rutledge, someone who Yates considers a close friend and as good a host in all of television, was a task for which he was honored to take on. While he generally displays his football acumen on this program in a contributing role outside of its main cast, he suddenly found himself responsible for setting up the deep roster of analysts and also delivering his own opinions over the course of a show.

NFL Live is one of those shows that when I was there, my mindset was, ‘Let the stars of the show do their thing,’” Yates said. “As far as the analysis role, we weren’t as reactionary to the news of yesterday because there weren’t that many games that you’re reacting to.”

Before he started covering football on a regular basis, Yates was a tight end and linebacker for his high school football team and was named to the All-Independent School League. From there, he attended Wesleyan University where he played on the football and lacrosse teams while majoring in psychology. For parts of high school and college, Yates interned with the New England Patriots and ultimately narrowed his focus to coaching and scouting, ultimately trying to prove his worth to remain in the NFL. In the end, he was hired by the Kansas City Chiefs as a member of its scouting and coaching department where he spent games in the coaching box and eventually helped chart defensive plays.

Experience working in the NFL is not a necessary prerequisite in order to serve as an effective analyst or commentator, Yates affirmed, but he is cognizant of the fact that it did give him an inherent advantage to decipher nuances of the sport. In fact, he refers to his time in the league as his “football Rosetta Stone,” carving a stele from which he decodes different facets of the sport.

“It allowed me to understand a little bit deeper some of the things that I probably was aware of but was able to kind of crystallize,” Yates said, “like what specifically I was looking for in players and kind of what went into the process of scouting a player at a very, very, very basic level, sort of understanding what went into a game plan.”

Yates enjoyed his work at the NFL level, but he quickly realized that the outline of events made it difficult to attend events such as weddings and his five-year high school reunion. He was making sacrifices to work in football, and while he knows that he may have felt differently about it at another time in his life, he began to ponder over making a change.

“It’s a schedule that does not work around you; you work around it, and I just sort of felt like there was a little bit more balance for me out there in the world of sports media, which all these years later I feel validated in saying,” Yates conveyed, “because while I absolutely 100% love everything that goes into the scouting process in so many ways, I do have some balance in my life that I’m not sure would have been afforded if I stayed in that world of scouting.”

After moving on from his job in football, Yates earned his real-estate license and thought that the field would serve him better in a career. Six months later though, he felt a yearning for sports and was looking to find a way back into the industry in a role that would better serve his aspirations.

Once he realized that sports media could prove to be optimal, he began sending emails to Mike Reiss, an NFL reporter for ESPN who covers the New England Patriots that became a mentor who accepted him early on in the business. After freelance writing for several football blogs and websites, he was hired by ESPN and worked on its Boston coverage, covering his first NFL Draft at the age of 24 from Gillette Stadium.

“I kind of point to that to where it sort of began,” Yates said. “It was the first opportunity for me to be inside of a professional media setting amongst a bunch of people that I either had grown up reading or had followed on social media; things of that nature. Mike really kind of helped me get my first sort of stepping stone into the world of sports media.”

When he was working in Boston, Yates was the co-host of two ESPN Radio shows centered around football while also writing articles for the outlet’s official website. He gradually made the transition towards covering the league nationally and started to contribute to both NFL coverage and fantasy football content.

Seth Markman, who serves as a vice president of production for ESPN, assisted Yates in understanding the means of comparison and contrast within the dichotomy of these two subject matters. As a result, he discerned what aspects of the sport were applicable between these focuses and began to further excel in his work. Before he was named the host of Fantasy Football Now, Yates was an NFL insider on the show and would cogently fuse these two areas together.

“I can’t say that every single thing that I learned in scouting I have used to this day in fantasy football, but there’s definitely a lot of stuff that I feel has been useful when you’re trying to evaluate sort of the real or not real nature of player performance,” Yates said. “A guy has a monster game in Week 1 and you’re sitting there wondering, ‘Alright, I haven’t really thought about this player that much,’ or, ‘I hadn’t really thought about this player that much. What do we see in this player and how real is or is it not?’”

Yates monitors metrics in real time on Sunday afternoons when he is situated in the ESPN War Room watching games around the league with his colleagues. Located within the network’s Bristol headquarters, he views the action alongside Chris Berman, Adam Schefter and other ESPN personalities, monitoring the latest developments and building camaraderie.

Over the years in the War Room, Yates has vivid memories watching games with ESPN NFL reporter Chris Mortensen, who worked at the network for over three decades. Mortensen stepped down from ESPN last April, but throughout his time at the network he built relationships with his colleagues and was always accessible to them. Earlier this month, Mortensen passed away at the age of 72, news that saddened his colleagues, competitors and sports fans around the world.

“I remember whenever I talked to Mort on the phone, it was always a lot longer than I anticipated or he anticipated it might be, so a call that began with a text that said, ‘Hey, do you have a couple of minutes to catch up?,’ usually turned into about an hour or so,” Yates recalled. “We already do miss Mort a lot, and I think it’s going to feel that much different in the fall on Sundays.”

Although ESPN no longer airs Fantasy Football Now, he continues to share his insights regarding the space on several ESPN television programs and the Fantasy Focus Football podcast. Yates co-hosts the audio offering with Daniel Dopp, Mike Clay and Stephania Bell, all of whom bring unique concentrations to the air that help create a compelling, engaging final product. There are a plethora of outlets producing fantasy football content, but Yates believes that the rapport between the on-air talent ultimately sets them apart.

“If Christian McCaffrey has four touchdowns on Sunday, we’re going to talk about it on Monday, and probably every other podcast will as well,” Yates hypothesized. “What’s going to hopefully make us different is the entertainment value and the camaraderie and the chemistry that makes you say, ‘Yeah, I know I can hear about Christian McCaffrey anywhere, but I really want to hear from the Fantasy Focus crew.’”

With the NFL Draft rapidly approaching, Yates is continuing to extrapolate his insights in that niche of coverage on the twice-weekly First Draft podcast with ESPN senior NFL Draft analyst Mel Kiper Jr. The show allows them to deliberate topics at length, satiating the appetite for more detail and protracted discussion for those looking for such content. These podcasts, along with his radio appearances, television responsibilities and the written word, excite Yates and keep him enthused about football coverage going forward.

“While I feel like we have near around-the-clock coverage for football, I just feel like we’re going to have even more and more and more going forward,” Yates said. “The digital space is so great, but it’s an opportunity for all of us to continue to grow, and that league has become must-see TV, 365 days a year.”

From the moment Yates arrived at ESPN, he immediately felt welcomed by people at the company who emitted a sense of gratitude and thoughtfulness. Looking back, he acknowledges that they could have told him to “go kick rocks,” but they did the opposite instead and forged meaningful relationships that have helped enhance the quality and breadth of programming.

With the whirlwind of free agency slowly winding down, Yates is beginning to see the illuminating lights of the NFL Draft stage glowing in downtown Detroit. The filled-in draft board will resemble an answer key of sorts for Yates to review before he moves on to studying the next iteration of the event. Through it all, he will watch as the league receives a new class of budding stars looking to contribute to teams around the league as they work to realize championship aspirations.

“I find pure joy in being a part of the ESPN family and covering football like I do,” Yates said. “No day feels like work for me, and it’s something that has allowed me to meet some incredible people along the way. I’ve been at ESPN for over a decade now, and I feel real camaraderie and feel a real loyalty and bond at the company, and that to me is motivation enough to want to continue to do it for a long, long time.”

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