Safe to say it is almost back to normal, the craziness of Super Bowl Radio Row and the ancillary activities in and around the Phoenix Convention Center.
The most interesting thing this year was the continued shift to new platforms and areas that we would not have seen before COVID, and the continued diversity of spoken word. Bryan Curtis had his own summary of Radio Row here that is worth a read as well. This year there were over 140 outlets on site, which seemed about right for where we are in a travel restricted by finance, Zoom encouraged still world, but for those who made the journey it was probably worth the experience.
If you had the right message, the right person and picked your time and spots, there was amazing storytelling to be done, and lots of goals to be achieved with platforms more than willing to listen, engage and discuss…in person.!!!
Now what we didn’t have more of this year was the range of the sublime to the ridiculous. It is truly an open marketplace of storytelling, a place where you would see the star of “In the Heights” (Anthony Robles) sitting next to Ike’s from Ike’s Sandwiches from LA, or a UFC Champion Jamahal Hill sharing stories with a guy, actor Khris Davis playing a heavyweight champion (George Foreman) in an upcoming film. From convention centers to hotel ballrooms to the Mall of America, there has been nothing quite like Radio Row. While there were some double takes…a guy in a royal crown hawking sneakers, more than a few players talking Weed and CBD, the entourages and the spectacle were still a bit scaled back, and frankly that was the loss of the creative.
Some observations:
–Gambling grows as a content platform: Both Fan Duel, with their Rob Gronkowski stage, and DraftKings with their massive live streaming platform, dominated the room, while Caesars had their first-ever full activation as well. There were also at least a half dozen platforms set up around the room gathering content either sponsored by gambling platforms or gathering content to push out to platforms with a gambling tilt. The well-funded gambling sites continue to create more consumer value, and if you are talking football, there is no better place to gather content and draw buzz that Radio Row.
–The Expansion of Faith Based Storytelling: There was much made of the “He Gets Us” spots that ran on Super Bowl Sunday (they had a presence on Radio Row as well), but even more interesting were the amount of platforms, all in their own quadrant, who were there gathering content with a wide range of speakers (ever superagent Leigh Steinberg found his way to drop in on the platforms on Friday) big and small. From “Faith on The Field” to “Sports Spectacular” to “Beleav” and others, there were at least 10 outlets that mixed faith messaging with Super Bowl storytelling (adding in The Disability Channel as well), the largest contingent ever, and a group that speaks, literally, to the conservative core many NFL fans embrace.
-Stats Takes A content Stance As Well: Once just background for fans and media outlets, prominent statistical platforms have also found their way to story tell on Radio Row. Pro Football Focus and The 33rd Team both used the week to build relationships and talk data for their own platforms, showing again how expansive data and all the predictive numbers of the NFL can be as a stand-alone.
–Audio platforms keep growing their presence. We have had the large presence of Sirius over the years, and the traditional networks…CBS and NBC and Fox always have had their national spots. This year you had I Heart, Entercom, Westwood One and the NFL who rimmed the room with their own hosts and their own draw, all looking to create conversation for their own niche verticals. The spend to build the brand independent of others seemed to be valuable, and it was much easier to draw talent away from a semi-crowded room by having a destination for guests.
–If You Were A Student From East Of The Mississippi, You Had A Spot. West? Not really. This year we hit a new high for Radio Row schools…seven…Penn State, Arizona State, Syracuse, Fordham, St. Bonaventure and a returning Ithaca all had a prominent spot, with a few others visiting on select days. But where were locals other like Arizona, Grand Canyon and others? It remains a missed opportunity to bring in young new voices to capture content of all forms and give them a taste of the networking and the job opportunities…and even to have them share best practices with others. Maybe next year in Las Vegas, the host committee can do the outreach and work with the NFL on identifying the best in class form a 100 mile radius to experience and build personal storytelling. Those young people are the future, so why not let them in?
-Teams Take Their Place: This year there were no less than five NFL teams, none of which were playing in the game, who brought their content teams to Radio Row to capture all the experiences of Radio row. Some, like the Jets, came in anticipation of potential news (two Hall of Famers and Offensive and Defensive Rookies of the Year) while others like the Raiders were on board as a more traditional media play, talking to scores of former players and other media types who are looking to engage with a large Raiders Nation following.
–The foreign touch still a bit lacking: We had a little bit from the UK, a platform from Mexico, Telemundo Deportes and some Canadians, but that was it. As the NFL grows globally, why not find not just multilingual outlets from abroad, but multilingual outlets based in the US to proactively come in and grab a spot? Again going to Las Vegas, how about finding and leaning forward for outlets to come in and story tell in multiple languages? German or Dutch as well anyone? Translation tools are not that hard to come by, and the rainbow of experience would be beneficial in reaching a wider demo now getting used to all things NFL.
–Quality of audio, and the ability to bring in video. Most outlets have been able to pivot to using everything from Zoom to Microsoft teams to bring in guests far and wide. The ability to see people, not just hear them, has actually led in many cases to very focused and more expansive storytelling. There are less chances to be distracted when someone is looking at you, not just talking at you. The ability to stream video has also led to more opportunities for sponsorship for outlets, because video just lends itself to more opportunities to snapshot content. Now bring along the adaption of 5G in the coming months and year, and the quality just keeps improving, and that’s good news for those on both ends of the connection.
-NIL begins to show its stripes. While we were told by one of the biggest NIL platforms that their focus was on all the opportunities around current NFL players during the week, the use of Radio Row for college athletes started to take shape this year for the first time. There were three or four current, and soon to be former, college athletes making the rounds in midweek. The most prominent, and most engaged, was Tennessee Wide Receiver Jalin Hyatt who was yes, there for four Wednesday early morning hours talking his Hyatt Hotel partnership.
-CBD is King Among Athletes. The CBD category is still very fluid (or up in smoke, pun intended) in terms of a brand platform for most sports leagues and teams, but amongst athletes, it is growing quicky as an endorsement platform. Two of the busiest athletes hawking their brand were former NFLers Kyle Turley and Jim McMahon, who did in excess of six hours each for their Revenent brand. They were not the only ones, as a host of other retired athletes also mixed in CBD related brands during their visits of the week.
–Randomness Returns. The beauty of Radio Row is not the interviews, it has been the people, those you would see once a year, but also so many you would know, or know of, who you would cross paths with roaming the aisles of talk going on. The chance meetings, like with the Carrottop or with a media member you have only connected with on email or a call, and the partnerships and opportunities that came out of that encounter was really the beauty of what makes Radio Row such a special event, and that was certainly back this year.
–Social sharing: Something that has grown for the good is the use of social tools for expanded storytelling. If you are ESPN San Antonio it’s great to have a Hall of Famer join you for a conversation, but when the HOF guy shares a picture on his social accounts, and tags the station, it amplifies the message and the narrative to a much wider audience. It also helps grow the presence of the midlevel players or celebs and spokespeople well beyond just an audio or video interview. A nuance, but a valuable one become more and more of the process, and that’s a good thing.
-Where were the women? As one looks for Radio Row blue ocean, the growth of women’s sports and spokespeople also remains amazingly wide open. While you do get announcers, some in leadership and maybe an occasional athlete, it is rare that you see a prominent woman make her way through Radio Row. More voices needed to take advantage of the platform next year.
You also love the innovative…the guys from Cornhole bringing in boards, random pizza deliveries, even one year the Girl Scout selling cookies or the Northern California Wine growers pouring a few glasses, were in a bit of a void this year as the uncertainty of value was in question, really until the last few days. And while Twitter had no present, TikTok did…and other tech based platforms…Amazon, Twitch, YouTube will also be more expansive as partnerships continue to figure out the value add for content that Radio Row can bring.
There is always Vegas though, right?
