Sports Business Update

2009 U.S. Open winner captures his first PGA TOUR victory in more than 10 years as George McNeilly reported on VOA Networks.

Saturday, July 10 appearance to start round three of the John Deere Classic on The Backspin Golf Show.

This week on VOA Sports, Golf Insider  George McNeilly reports from TPC Deere Run and the John Deere Classic Media Center where he spoke with Author Craig DeVrieze and 2019 winner Dylan Frattelli.

Most people these days know my firm and I for strategic alliances and integrated marketing communications.  I also get to teach business at a great university after a corporate executive career with TWDC/ESPN.  Fact is, it all began in a local radio studio while still in high school and a decade as a network broadcaster covering Olympics, Super Bowls, Major Golf, Heavyweight Championship Boxing, World Series and Major College Football and Basketball.  I recently came across a few digitally remastered NCAA highlights including a one-on-one interview with the legendary John Chaney, then head coach of the Temple University Owls.  I’ve been told some of my students have appreciated when I shared these memories, so here goes.

Cowboys and Niners win Super Bowls, and I got to tell their stories to a nationwide radio audience.    In all, I've been to 17 Super Bowls, 11 as a network broadcaster and 6 as an ESPN executive.

Looking back, other than the rights holding Motor Racing Network, no other national outlet did more spot news and features from Daytona than Westwood One and CBS Radio featuring George McNeilly.

In 1998, after nearly two decades of disappointment, Dale Earnhardt. Sr. finally captured the biggest race of his career, The Daytona 500.   CBS Correspondent George McNeilly was trackside for the winning moment.

So back in 1998, NBC’s First Light was basically radio’s version of The Today Show.   Here’s flashback to my sports segment which featured among others the Payne Stewart leading round one of the 98th U.S. Open.

The 1998 United States Open Championship was the 98th U.S. Open, held June 18–21 at the Lake Course of the Olympic Club in San Francisco, California. Lee Janzen won his second U.S. Open, one stroke ahead of Stewart who finished runner-up.