Media Credentials

George Galante joined the Orlando Magic as a PR intern while still in college. Nearly 30 years later, he is still part of the team. As the Senior Director of Communications, he's a managing editor for the team's media guide, a daily contributor to game notes, a coordinator of interviews for players and coaches, and a stat guru who travels with the team. As he puts it, his department is the gatekeeper between the Orlando Magic and the local and national media. In this episode, we talk about how the NBA has changed during his career, how the Magic have grown and improved recently, and his career path -- which includes an unexpected foray into minor league hockey.

My guest on this episode is my former Golf Channel colleague Justin Ray, who is now the Head of Content for Twenty First Group, a company that bills itself as a "sports intelligence agency." From their website: "Performance analytics enables us to drive sporting success for athletes, teams, leagues and investors, and enable brands, broadcasters and rightsholders to tell unique stories to their fans." Justin and Twenty First Group help those entities turn data into an action plan. The desired outcome depends upon the client; the goal might be to win more games, sell more tickets or sponsorships, or reach a larger audience. This an emerging area of sports media, one that receives little attention but has enormous impact on what you see, hear, and read. Justin and his team are at the tip of the spear.

Eric Rutledge got his start as a TV sports director in college, and eventually made his way to Golf Channel, where he spent nearly 20 years, primarily doing studio work. He explains what a director does, and we go deep into all the different jobs in the control room, and the remote production truck. Eric currently directs live golf for PGA TOUR LIVE, the tour's streaming service, but his day job finds him in the role of educator. Eric teaches a class at the Dan Patrick School of Sportscasting at Full Sail University, a specialized school for entertainment media and emerging technologies located in Orlando. He shares his philosophy on teaching, and the fulfillment of watching his students grow.

Mike Bianchi is a sports columnist for the Orlando Sentinel and one of the most influential voices in the Southeast. His 20-plus years with the Sentinel coincides with a lengthy career as a sports radio host in Orlando, and he was also a regular TV talk show panelist with me in the old days of Sun Sports (now Bally Sports Sun). A proud native Floridian, Mike talks about his early writing influences, his studies at the University of Florida, and his stops at newspapers in Gainesville, Cocoa Beach, and Jacksonville before coming to Orlando. We cover a little bit of everything -- college football, the NFL, the NBA, golf, and Major League Baseball. Mike presents his take on the current state of the newspaper industry and where sports journalism is headed, and shares memories of Tom Coughlin, Steve Spurrier, and many other luminaries he's covered. Don't miss the story of how (and why) we shaved his head on live television.

Keith Hirshland is an Emmy-winning sports television producer whose path started in Hawaii, passed through Orlando as he helped launch the Golf Channel, and now finds him in the producer's chair for live broadcasts of the upstart LIV Golf League. LIV is backed by the Public Investment Fund, the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia. On June 6th, 2023, the PGA Tour and the DP World Tour announced that they were going into business with the PIF, a move that has been termed a "merger." It's not that simple. While the scope of this historic agreement is still developing, it was apparent that my conversation with Keith needed an update, and he was gracious enough to come back for a second chat. The result is the first ever two-part episode of Media Credentials -- a few minutes dedicated to the seismic shift in professional golf, and a longer dive into Keith's lengthy career as a TV producer and author.

Michael J. Whelan is an Emmy-winning former television executive, a veteran of CBS and HBO Sports, who was a driving force in the creation of Golf Channel. He's also living proof that sometimes the story behind the executive bio is complicated. In this episode, you'll hear about his biggest events, including Wimbledon, the Olympics, and the Buster Douglas - Mike Tyson fight in Tokyo in 1990. Mike also describes the monumental task of getting Golf Channel on the air, a frantic effort in a very short time frame… he also goes deep into his own struggles with mental health, and more recently, his bouts with cancer. Raw and unfiltered, Mike Whelan takes us in a slightly different direction on this episode of Media Credentials.

Davey Finch worked as a camera operator for CBS Sports for over 40 years, and he is indisputably one of the best ever at his craft. In 2010, he was inducted into the Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame, the first camera operator to be so honored. His fellow inductees that year included Pat Summerall and John Madden. In this episode, you'll hear about Davey's introduction to TV, his big move to Hollywood, and how he sees what he sees. Think about what you do for a living. Picture that one person who does it better than anyone else. Now: imagine that nobody ever has a bad word to say about that person. That's Davey Finch.

From humble origins -- a boxing match in Pittsburgh in 1921 -- live sports on the radio has evolved into an everyday part of our lives. In this episode of Media Credentials, I speak with Mike Eaby, the Coordinating Producer at Westwood One Sports, one of the largest sports radio networks in the United States. Mike oversees radio production for the NFL, NCAA basketball, NCAA football, golf, and a wide variety of other events each year. We discuss how he started out in college radio, his experience at the Olympics and the Masters, the rise of satellite radio and streaming broadcasts, and how it's never been easier to listen to the game.

CBS has been televising professional golf for nearly 70 years, and in that time, the network has employed exactly three lead golf producers. Sellers Shy is the third. A two-time high school golfer of the year in his native Tennessee, Sellers oversees more than 20 weeks of PGA TOUR coverage in addition to his duties with college football and the NFL. We discuss his path to CBS, his relationship with three-time major winner Dr. Cary Middlecoff, what he learned from television legend Frank Chirkinian, and the innovations that CBS is bringing to golf. What struck me about this conversation is how grateful Sellers is for his opportunities, and how proud he is to work with the CBS Sports team.

If you're a media member -- or hope to be -- Tracey Veal is the PGA TOUR's gatekeeper. She approves media credentials for the Tour's biggest events, including the PLAYERS, the Presidents Cup, and the FedEx Cup Playoffs, among others. She also coordinates with local tournament teams to make sure the logistics are squared away before every event, and administers the Tour's media credential website. Fascinating interview that goes deep into the symbiotic relationship between the Tour and the media, and how "media" is defined in an age when anybody with a phone can call themselves a reporter. Plus, stories from her 22-year hitch in the Coast Guard prior to entering the corporate world.