For the last ten years ALEXI LALAS has been a studio soccer analyst for Fox Sports. Before that six years at ESPN followed a career as a player and an executive in MLS. Lalas was a World Cup player for the USA.He also played in Italy and MLS. Lalas hosts a podcast State of the Union.This conversation focuses mostly on Lalas’ politics and howthey pl…

RICHARD DEITSCH covers sports media for The Athletic and hosts the popular Sports Media Podcast. He was the first in the sports media podcasting world, creating a pod more than a decade ago when he was a reporter and writer for Sports Illustrated. We talk here about the growing interest in sports media, from reporters and podcasters to the consumer…

LARRY PUNTENEY is a state champion bowling coach & a health care consultant AND a sports broadcaster. All at the same time, sort of. An interesting life for a Council Bluffs, Iowa native who has made his way in Lincoln, Nebraska [and beyond.] Recorded October 2, 2024

BEN STRAUSS covers the media business, including the sports business and sports media for the Washington Post, which includes the networks, the RSNs, the personalities and innovators. He talks about the ‘tenuous’ nature of sports journalism and the strength of sports media.

STEVE PHYSIOC is a now-retired sports broadcaster who will soon be publishing his fifth novel. He was with the KC Royals from 2012 to 2022. He has also broadcast games for the LA Angels, Cincinnati Reds and San Francisco Giants, as well as football and basketball games on various outlets over the years. We talk here about the Royals, writing books,…

CALLUM WILLIAMS broadcasts soccer for Apple TV's MLS Season Pass, ESPN, CBS, DAZN and other outlets in Europe and around the world. He has broadcast for two MLS clubs Sporting Kansas City and Minnesota United. The Birmingham, England native first came to the US in 2011 as a 21-year-old just to see what it was like living andworking in the US. He we…

JACOB PADILLA has been covering sports in Nebraska forabout a decade, since graduating from Creighton. He covers Nebraska volleyball, Creighton men’s basketball and high schools sports. Jacob talks about the Huskers annual hunt for a national VB title, its coach John Cook and the recent ESPN E60 documentary about the team. Recorded August 26, 2024…

STU POSPISIL has been a sportswriter at the OmahaWorld Herald since the early 1980s. He was the 2022 Nebraska Sports Writer of the Year, from the National Sports Media Association. Here in 2024, Pospisil starts his 41st season covering high school sports for the biggest newspaper brand in Nebraska.He provides insights into how the coverage is put t…

JEN KARSON STRAUSS is Director of the ESPN E60 documentary “No Place Like Nebraska,” which airs August 25, 2024 at 5:00 p.m. ET on ESPN and will then be available on ESPN+. This is the story of a Nebraska volleyball season that started with 92,003 fans at Memorial Stadium and ended with a loss in the NCAA title game in Tampa. This conversation focu…

DENNIS DODD has been with CBS Sports since 1998, reporting on college football. We chat here about the upcoming season, the biggest story [it's the playoffs!], the national picture, the two big conferences, the changing nature of the business, Scott Frost, Huskers and Matt Rhule, and more. Interview Recorded August 14, 2024…

CHRIS SCHMIDT co-hosts the Morning News for three hours at KFOR radio in Lincoln and the Hail Varsity program, two hours of sports talk in the afternoons on KFOR and other stations around Nebraska. He also is part of three podcasts talking about sports in various formats. He does more than 25 hours of live radio and streamingevery week. We talk abo…

DAVID BERRI teaches economics at Southern UtahUniversity. He is the author, with Nefertitii Walker of UMass-Amherst, of the new book “Slaying the Trolls: Why the trolls are very, very wrong about women and sports.” This is aconversation about that book and its content, which looks at women in sports, including the biases, the challenges, the opport…

MICHAEL BRUNTZ has covered Huskers football for CBS Sports's Husker 247 since 2011. In 2024 he starts his 18th season reporting on the Huskers. He attended and wrote about the Big Ten Media days in Indianapolis in late July 2024. We talk about that, the coverage of the Huskers and the prospects for the team in Matt Rhule’s second season as head coa…

NICK BADDERS is the Broadcast and Media Manager forthe Omaha Stormchasers, the Royals AAA team in the International League. He’s in his second season with the Chasers. We talk about his progress as an announcer, what he has learned in 18 months on the job in Omaha. The Bay Area native also has some thoughts about the Oakland Athletics moving as wel…

CONNOR CLARK is in his first year as the broadcasting and media relations manager of the American Association's Lincoln Saltdogs baseball team. He spent two summers in college working with the former PxP announcer Michael Dixon. Clark graduated from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in May 2024. We chat here about the job, about getting started in…

MOLLY ROBINSON is co-host of the midday program “Three Man Front” on WJOX Radio in Birmingham, Alabama. She was on the scene when MLB celebrated Negro Leagues baseball and Willie Mays, with the Giants and Cubs playing at Rickwood Field. The Nebraskagraduate and Alabama native talks about her first full time radio job and the impact the game and fes…

DOUG DUDA - the 2022 Nebraska Sportscaster of the year - is the Sports Director of ESPN Tri-Cities in Kearney, Nebraska where he has been for about 27 years. He's worked in Central Nebraska in 'local' radio for more than 35 years. We talk about what a guy does in the middle of the summer to keep it lively on his "Doug and Daddy" radio show.…

AARON OBERHOLSER has been an analyst and on-coursereporter for NBC’s Golf Channel since 2013. He’s a former PGA Tour player whose first win came at the Pebble Beach National Pro-Am in 2006. As a junior at San Jose State in 1996 he won six college titles, matching the number of a Stanford sophomore named Tiger Woods. Aaron worked the US Open for NBC…

JACQUI OATLEY has quickly become a fixture in American soccer broadcasting. On Fox Sports, she worked the Men's World Cup in Qatar in 2022 and the Women's World Cup in Australia/New Zealand in 2023. Oatley is doing the Euros 2024 this summer on Fox Sports. She is the lead voice on CBS Sports for the NWSL. The native of Wolverhampton continues to do…

GEOFF EXSTROM is the Director of Communications andMedia Relations for the Omaha Supernovas of the Professional Volleyball Federation. In his first season as the media relations director, in the first season of the league’s existence Omaha won the championship. We chattedbefore the season about his new gig. This is an update of a kind of what-did-y…

MAX OLSON is Senior Writer covering college footballfor The Athletic. He was one of the early hires there, following a stint with ESPN. Max is a Nebraska native, a graduate of the University of Nebraska journalismcollege. He spends his time covering the games, the portal, the off-field news including NIL and the new world of directly paying college…

Michael Serazio researches and writes in theareas of media and communication. He is professor of communications at Boston College. His latest book is "The Authenticity Industries." He's also the author of "The Power of Sports: Media and Spectacle in American Culture." He chats here with John about the condition of sports journalism, the sports medi…

Elijah Herbel is the producer and co-host of "HailVarsiy Radio," from Hurrdat Media. It is flagshipped at KFOR Radio in Lincoln and heard around the state 4-6 p.m. weekdays. Elijah started with the show while he was in college at Nebraska and has been with host Chris Schmidt now for about five years. It is fundamentally a show about Huskers sports …

RICKY LOPEZ ESPIN is a former soccer player at Creighton. He played professionally in Salt Lake City, Los Angeles, Miami and Fort Lauderdale. He is now a color analyst for a number of television outlets, including MLS, MLS Next Pro, and USL. He’s been broadcasting for about three years and already has aspirations of broadcasting World Cup games.…

JOHN BAYLOR will enter his 31st season as the radio voice of the Huskers Volleyball team in Fall 2024. He has added some television work, calling games on News Channel Nebraska for the Omaha Supernovas of the Pro Volleyball Federation. We talk about the Huskers, the newvolleyball league and some of the distinctions between doing radio and televisio…

CHRIS WITTYNGHAM is a young American soccerannouncer. He does games for MLS Season Pass on Apple TV+ and Serie A games on Paramount Plus and CBS. He does other soccer announcing as well, including radio for Inter Miami of MLS. He represents the new generation of soccer announcers; he’s young, multilingual, multicultural and learned the business cal…

JAVIER ORTIZ is the general manager, California for the Latino Media Network. He manages radio stations in Fresno, Los Angeles and Las Vegas. He also manages the company’s relationship with the Los Angeles Dodgers Spanish-language broadcasts. Ortiz has worked in a number of roles in the radio and television business and has worked in marketing and …

JOSH PETERSON co-hosts the "Unsportsmanlike Conduct" radio show with John Bishop, 2-6 p.m. weekdays at 1620 The Zone radio in Omaha. They've been together for nearly ten years. Sports talk radio in Omaha appears to be alive and well. Josh says Caitlin Clark is the 'biggest start in college basketball" - woman or man. We also talk about finding the …

John Shrader looks at the changing nature of American soccer broadcasting and the young people who dream of making this their long-term career. They would be the first generation of American announcers who started their careers working only in soccer.

STEVEN CALDWELL is a former professional soccer player – in Scotland, the English Premiere League, English Championship and Major League Soccer. He’s a Scotsman who now plies his trade in Toronto, where he runs an academy; his highest profile work is as a television analyst for TSN. We talk here about the role of the TV analyst, the emergence of so…

MICHAEL DIXON is the Play by Play voice of the Lincoln Saltdogs of minor league baseball's American Association. This winter [summer Down Under] Michael has been announcing games for the Melbourne Aces of the Australian Baseball League. He talked with me from Melbourne about what the work he's doing, baseball's place in Australian life, and what th…

DAVE JOHNSON is the original voice of DC United of Major League Soccer, and has been for nearly 30 years the radio voice of the NBA’s Washington Wizards. Dave was for the first 27 years of its existence the TV voice of DC United, but that ended when Apple TV+ took over the nationaltelevision contract for MLS. He talks about not being one of the ann…

:20 Jacob Schrantz and Skylee Nelson with a personal podcast/radio show featuring interviews, discussion and personal observations about recruiting. Interviews in this program include Kelly Mosier of Hudl, Mike Sautter of Hurrdat Sports covering high school sports, and Lincoln Southwest High School athletic director Andrew Sherman. 41:10 Camden Coh…

:50 SARAH PERSON [19:04] a personal view of her loveaffair with the Nebraska volleyball team. 19:30 CAMDEN COHN [10:12] a professional profile ofMilwaukee Brewers announcer and former Huskers announcer Lane Grindle. 29:40 SKYLEE NELSON [20:11] a personal journey of discoveryin sports and in sports media, that will take her next to Bristol, CT. 49:5…

GEOFF EXSTROM is a Broadcasting and Sports Media and Communication alum of UNL’s CoJMC. He is now the Director of Communications and Media Relations for the Omaha Supernovas, one of the seven founding members of the Pro Volleyball Federation. In this interview recorded December 16, 2023 he talks about the new team, his new job, the value of volleyb…

MIKE WATTS is one of America’s up-and-coming soccer announcers. He broadcasts USL and NWSL among the more than 200 events he does in a year, mostly on TV but he also does radio for Westwood One. He is the pre-season voice of the Cincinnati Bengals. Mike is an Ohio native who went to college at Fordham, where many national voices were educated, from…

DAVID BERRI is professor of economics at Southern Utah University. He researches, writes and teaches sports and economics. Here we talk about the College Sports Industry, theincredible amounts of money in college athletics and some context about where they fit into a university budget, NIL and more. [We almost certainly will talk about paying a foo…

NICK BADDERS is going into his second year in 2024 as the voice of the Kansas City Royals Triple-A team in Omaha. His father is an Omaha native, his grandfather was a fan of the Kansas City Athletics. Nick is a Northern California native who graduated from the Cronkite School at Arizona State.

JAKE ZIVIN has been a Major League Soccer announcer for more than a decade, first as the voice of the Portland Timbers, and now one of the lead announcers for the Apple TV+ presentation of MLS. He’s a native of Evanston, Illinois, who worked local TV in Missoula, Montana and Eugene, Oregon. He’s one of the new generation - maybe the first generatio…

LIZ MERRILL has been with ESPN for nearly 16 years. She is a senior writer, specializing in long form, investigative and takeout stories. In this interview she talks about her career, how it got started and talks about of her big stories, including Chiefsaholic and former basketball great who is now cloistered nun. She also talks about Nebraska’s V…

ALEXI LALAS is the top soccer analyst for Fox Sports.He works in the studio for many of their soccer productions, including the Men’s and Women’s World Cups. They were in Qatar in November 2022 and Australia/New Zealand in July 2023. He is the lightning rod of their broadcasts. He is outspoken, confident and sometimes controversial. He’s a Hall of …

LAUREN MICHELSON has been the sports director of KLKN-TV Channel 8 in Lincoln since May 2022. She is the weeknight sports anchor who shoots, produces, writes and delivers sports at least five days a week. She is a graduate of the University of Missouri journalism school. We talk about getting a career started, being a woman in a male-dominated busi…

TOM SHATEL was hired on September 1, 1991 as the sports columnist of the Omaha World Herald. He has been there since. In this conversation he talks about what he does. Also, Scott Frost, Tom Osborne, Bo Pelini and the importance of facing the sources when you write something critical of them. He talks about what makes him unique, his enjoyment of b…

ANDY KENDEIGH is the Sports Director at KETV, Channel 7 in Omaha. The station's Newswatch 7 news shows have been number one in the market for many years. He is a veteran of the high school coverage as well as the Huskers. We talk about those things as well as the process of the job and what the audience wants and expects. SHOW NOTES: :20 Hello and …

SAM MC KEWON is the sports editor of the Omaha World Herald. He also covers Huskers football. He is a rather non-traditional editor in that he writes and reports, including covering the highest-profile team in the state, Nebraska football. He talks about the paper’s relationship with the Lincoln Journal Star, delivery of the news in the 21st centur…

KARIM ZIDAN is an investigative journalist working atthe intersection of sports and politics. His newsletter at Substack is called Sports Politika. We talk here about sports washing and so much more, including how sports fits into the wide world of business and politics. He talks about Saudi Arabia, LIV golf, FIFA and IOC (“they are big mafias”) an…

KARIM ZIDAN is an investigative journalist working at the intersection of sports and politics. His newsletter at Substack is called Sports Politika. We talk here about sports washing and so much more, including howsports fits into the wide world of business and politics. He talks about Saudi Arabia, LIV golf, FIFA and IOC (“they are big mafias”) an…

STEVE SIPPLE is columnist for Husker Online and the On3 Network. He joined Husker Online in the summer of 2022 after 33 years with the Lincoln Journal Star newspaper. This conversation is an update, a check-in on various matters related to sports journalism, coverage of sports in Nebraska, especially Huskers, and what’s going on generally in the sp…

SARATH GANJI Fellow, Center for a New American Security Director, Autocracy and Global Sports Initiative He researches and writes about a number of things related to global sports and security, and has become one of the world’s leading authorities and critics of what has become known as Sportswashing. That is the term used to describe how state act…

DAVID BERRI isa professor of economics, a researcher and author of books on sports and economics and sports and gender. Here he talks at NIL (Name, Image and Likeness.) He also talks about the impact the new marketplace has on the college sports industry; about its sustainability, about where it’s been and where it’s going. [We do not talk about th…