{"id":153140,"date":"2025-11-22T04:21:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-22T04:21:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/153140\/"},"modified":"2025-11-22T04:21:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-22T04:21:09","slug":"public-radio-gets-back-in-the-game-with-sports-in-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/153140\/","title":{"rendered":"Public radio gets back in the game with \u2018Sports in America\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new show from WHYY aims to fill a gap on public radio schedules with a weekly look at the world of sports.<\/p>\n

Launched in September, the Philadelphia station\u2019s Sports in America is the only nationally distributed public radio program dedicated to sports. The system has lacked such a show since 2020, when WBUR ended production of the long-running Only a Game<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Logo<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a problem, according to WHYY Audio GM Joan Cherry Isabella, who said she has been \u201cthinking for a long time\u201d that public radio needed a sports show.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think that listening to Morning Edition means you don\u2019t like sports,\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019s not how it works in the real world. And I think for a long time, public media shied away from sports. But I think \u2026 that may have been a mistake. People love sports.\u201d<\/p>\n

The show\u2019s host, former Morning Edition anchor David Greene, is a self-proclaimed \u201cinsane\u201d sports fan, he told programmers at the Public Media Content Conference in August. Sports in America \u201crecognizes the fact that sports are one rare thing that we still all show up for together,\u201d he said during an event hosted by PRX, which is distributing the show.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSports are a place where there are just extraordinary stories everywhere, and we learn lessons that really reflect back on us and teach us about ourselves and our society,\u201d Greene said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In an email to Current, Greene said he wants the show to appeal to sports fans and non-fans alike.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI want this show to resonate with listeners who love their pro sports teams so much they\u2019ll spend hours listening to sports talk radio \u2014 but then will come here for an immersive experience they can\u2019t get over there,\u201d he said. \u201cI want this show to resonate with people who don\u2019t identify as diehard fans but end up discovering lessons about themselves as they listen. They come for the powerful conversations and leave realizing there\u2019s more to sports than they first thought.\u201d<\/p>\n

The program has launched as stations are rethinking schedules<\/a> and looking to save money following the rescission of federal funding for public media. PRX and WHYY are offering the program for free to stations. So far, more than 60 have added the program, according to a PRX spokesperson.\u00a0<\/p>\n

One is WESA in Pittsburgh, Greene\u2019s hometown. \u201cWe\u2019ve heard from many listeners that they take pride in David as a local product,\u201d Mike Sauter, VP of broadcasting, said in an email.\u00a0 \u201cBeyond that, though, the Pittsburgh area is a strong sports town, and that\u2019s a coverage area that we\u2019ve been trying to serve more intentionally.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The station has also been \u201ctrying to find more change-of-pace programming at a time when some listeners have been stepping back from being immersed in news coverage,\u201d Sauter said.<\/p>\n

Why WHYY?<\/p>\n

Six episodes of the hourlong show have aired so far. Greene has interviewed athletes including NFL wide receiver Chris Godwin and Lia Thomas, the University of Pennsylvania swimmer who was the first transgender woman to win an NCAA Division 1 title.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Earlier episodes have primarily featured interviews, but the most recent installment took on more of a newsmagazine feel with a look at sports betting. Greene talked with an author and expert on the subject who had written a memoir about gambling. He also opened the show on a personal note by discussing his complicated relationship with gambling. In his youth, his mom\u2019s sports betting and other gambling raised concerns about whether she would be able to pay the rent. Later on, betting on sports also brought him and his mom closer.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

These early episodes of Sports in America have drawn on In the Moment, a sports podcast previously produced by media company Religion of Sports and distributed by PRX. About two years ago, In the Moment co-EP Adam Schlossman asked WHYY\u2019s Isabella about bringing the show to public radio, but then Religion of Sports cut its podcast department<\/a>. Schlossman told Isabella she could contact Greene if she wanted to pursue the show.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been talking ever since, trying to figure out how to make this happen,\u201d Isabella said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Philadelphia station is using updated material from In the Moment under a licensing agreement as a \u201cbuilding block\u201d to start Sports in America, said Tom Grahsler, director of digital studios at WHYY. So far, about 30% of the show has featured archival material.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The archival content was a \u201cbig piece\u201d of WHYY being able to launch Sports in America, Grahsler said, offering a \u201crunway.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThen we can sprinkle in new interviews so that the first kind of quarter that this [show] is running will have kind of a mix of repackaged and updated stories \u2026 but then totally fresh reporting,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

At the beginning of next year, the show will consist of \u201centirely new, weekly, always-on reporting,\u201d Grahsler said, and could incorporate pieces from stations and independent producers.<\/p>\n

The show\u2019s team is also thinking about producing for multiple platforms, Grahsler said. The program includes \u201cblocks that are built up so that when we get to radio, there\u2019s a billboard in the front and then there\u2019ll be a news hole. But then that doesn\u2019t appear in the podcast ecosystem,\u201d he said. Starting next year, excerpts from interviews will be posted to YouTube as well.<\/p>\n

Bringing people together<\/p>\n

WHYY decided to take on the program in part because Only a Game \u201cwas hugely, hugely popular,\u201d Grahsler said.<\/p>\n

The show brought sensitivity to its storytelling and avoided being \u201ca brash, typical, ripped-from-the-headlines, two guys chatting about what happened the night before\u201d kind of show, he said. \u201cIt felt like public radio. I think that those are the lessons that we want to be able to kind of integrate into what our show is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Internal WHYY surveys show that 63% of the station\u2019s listeners are very interested in at least one sport, and 86% of listeners said they consume sports media. The station has also found that a podcast it licenses about the Philadelphia Phillies, Hittin\u2019 Season, has been \u201chugely popular,\u201d Grahsler said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

WCMU in Mount Pleasant, Mich., added the program because \u201csports are part of Michigan\u2019s DNA,\u201d said Mike Horace, the station\u2019s radio program and operations manager, in an email. He added that at \u201ca time when our society feels more divided than ever, sports continue to bring people together, reminding us that we\u2019re not that different after all.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cListener feedback has been very positive so far,\u201d Horace said. \u201cWe\u2019ve had several listeners tell us they appreciate the depth of the storytelling.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new show from WHYY aims to fill a gap on public radio schedules with a weekly look…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":153141,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[93,61,60,278,86403,36853],"class_list":["post-153140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-music","tag-prx","tag-whyy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153140\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}