(Disclaimer: this was recorded Tuesday after Banquet, before Jag's voice was back to full capacity.)
The Super Bowl, The NFL Draft, The Combine, even The Pro Bowl. If it's an NFL "tentpole" event, today's guest is directly involved in its planning and execution. Mike Konner, from the illustrious Class of 1995 joins us today.
A Connecticut native and baseball lover first, Mike realized in Com 107 that on-air might not be his eventual career path. But that didn't stop him from being part of a dynamic morning show at the station alongside the likes of Chris Verlardi, Brian Gewirtz, John Beck, Steve Donovan, Mike Murphy, and more. He also did regular jock shifts, which ended up in an aircheck session with Dion Summers that Mike still hasn't forgotten.Mike also tells the story of the Blizzard of 1993, and how karma got him on a long morning show break.
When it wasn't logistically possible for MIke to intern for the Yankees radio team, he instead did so at A Current Affair, the original tabloid TV Show. This turned into a job after graduation, ambushing the likes of Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, and others. Next, he moved to LA for the start of Access Hollywood, but the hours were worse than a WJPZ overnight.
Mike followed his love for sports and ended up at Fox Sports Net, then joined the team that launched NFL Network in 2003. Following that success, he was tapped to help launch the MLB Network in 2009. After 8 years there, he headed back west to rejoin his NFL family. In fact, he cites his coworkers as even more of a factor than the NFL's dominant position in sports, in the decision. Last year, he was on the team that, along with player input, revamped the entire Pro Bowl.
The WJPZ spirit of paying forward is still strong with Mike. He give excellent career advice in this podcast, including "if you want to be on air, do it young." (He explains why). And we spend some time talking about the need for friendship when we all hit career setbacks. That part of the podcast should resonate with all of us.
Finally, Mike has a suggestion. Isn't it time we did a documentary on Rick Wright?
Link to Steve Donovan's episode: https://wjpzat50.simplecast.com/episodes/stephen-donovan
The WJPZ at 50 Podcast Series is produced by Jon Gay, Class of 2002, and his podcast production agency, JAG in Detroit Podcasts.
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JAG: Welcome to WJPZ at 50. I am Jon Jag Gay. You're to forgive my voice a little bit because we're recording this the Tuesday after the banquet, and it is only appropriate that we have a member of the biggest class in our history, the class of 1995 today. That is Mike Konner. He is a senior coordinating producer at NFL Network. Mike, welcome to the show.
Mike: Jon. Thanks so much for having me and to all of the listeners out there. I think this has to be the final episode. If you've gotten to me, this has to be the last episode of WJPZ at 50, but thank you so much. I'm touched for the invitation.
JAG: We have more to come after you.
We're just getting started here. So what's cool is you and I connected on Facebook, I think because of the podcast. Do I have that right?
Mike: Absolutely. I started listening at the very first one with Rick Wright and just hearing his history, and I wouldn't say listened to all of them, but definitely more than a majority.
Obviously so many people who I've crossed paths with over the years, but plenty of people who I didn't know before just loved hearing their stories and their experiences at JPZ and then their life stories afterwards. Father Dave nearly moved me to tears with joy, listened to his a couple weeks ago,
JAG: and it was wonderful to induct him into the Hall of Fame this past weekend as we record this.
And great for me to know his story too, as the first morning show host when the station moved to FM. So you talk about origin stories. Let's get to yours. Where are you're from? How'd you find Syracuse and how'd you find the radio station?
Mike: I'm originally from Connecticut. I remember. This had to have been in the mid to late eighties.
I was watching an NBA, I guess, Finals series. And during halftime they showed a feature on Newhouse. And at that point, that just caught my attention. That was what I wanted to do. I really wanted to be in baseball production. So that's what kind of got my interest of going to Syracuse, going to Newhouse.
And then once I got on campus, it took me a little while to get involved in JPZ, probably early on in my sophomore year. But not only am I from a legendary class of 95, I was on a legendary floor freshman year of college, Day 8. I was on the same floor as Chris Velardi, who obviously has a tremendous influence in JPZ and now to all of us at Syracuse.
Brian Gewirtz who we could maybe mention a little bit later, but he was also a member of the crazy morning crew for over a year. Their involvement, my overall interest in getting involved in something on campus drew me to JPZ early on sophomore year.
JAG: It's funny, you got to Syracuse, you were literally under the transmitter being in Day Hall and Velardi now the faculty advisor for WJPZ. So it all comes full circle.
Mike: Yes. It's remarkable.
JAG: So once you got the station, you said sophomore year, what did you do at the radio station, Mike?
Mike: I got there and as I mentioned, Brian was already on the crazy morning crew. A couple of my other friends, John Beck and Julie M Keel were on the morning crew, and I just wanted to get involved with that.
Unlike a couple of them, I really had to get my FCC license. Not all of them were controlling the board, so that was my initial thing is I got my FCC license I think in October of 92. I got overnight shifts. I remember doing an air check with Dion and it's, looking back, it's funny, it was probably a 2 to 4 shift.
And I turned it into an all-request hour. Cause I wanted figure to tape phone calls and turn them around quickly, which you'd have to do in the morning show. And I remember sitting down with Dion and him explained to me that it devalued an all-request hour if you do it also at two in the morning. So
JAG: Dion always teaching, right?
Mike: Always teaching. Dion Summers, his lessons still stick with me. Yeah, I did that for a couple months and then just got onto the morning show pretty quickly.
JAG: So who was on the morning show with you?
Mike: The person who I was, did it mostly with was Ryan McNaughton, who is coming to his end now as alumni president.
So he and I were the crazy morning crew along with Jay Palladino. And then we would do it, I think three days a week. And the other two were Abe Froman. Steve Donovan, who I'm sure doesn't have his voice anymore after this past weekend and Mike Murphy. A legendary college basketball announcer now at the University of New Hampshire.
JAG: Aside from your morning show cohorts and you mentioned Dion and Velardi, any other names that you came to mind that you've formed some great relationships with there? I know you're the class of 95, so you could probably spend an hour rattling them all off cuz there's so many of you.
Mike: I think of JPZ a little bit like Saturday Night Live where no matter what time period you're part of, you think your group was the best.
Whether you like the Bill Murray years, the Will Ferrell years the Adam Sandler years. So obviously Dion was there, AC Corrales. Adam Love, Diamond Dave, who at the time when I was a sophomore, He was a grown man as a senior, but had such a great presence. BB Good. Goofy Betty. Carl Wiser.
Velardi, Jen Nycz, Raff ran the sports department while I was there. Jeff Rossen was just starting off. He was my news guy. Mike Tacell, Rena Advani. He was a great list of folks. Obviously, I'm still very close with the folks in the morning crew, whether it's Beck. Or Gewirtz or McNaughton. Donovan and I chatted for a while, a couple months ago. It's just a great group of people.
JAG: What do you remember from your time at JPZ? And I'm gonna get to your career in just a minute, Mike, but what are some of the things you learned, either what to do, what not to do, whether it was professional stuff or interpersonal relationships? What stuff comes to mind from your time at the station?
Mike: Boy, there was a lot of what not to do over the years. We had fun. I wish I got more involved with the unit. We kept very much of a silo in a lot of regards of, did the morning show. So I got there at, 5:15, done at nine, and then went on with the day.
So I am looking back, I still have friends from the station, but which I got more involved outside of that. I do have some great memories. I don't know if you've ever heard of the blizzard of 93. So that was the year that Syracuse coming off of spring break canceled classes because they had 35 inches of snow on that Sunday before spring break.
So that Monday show I remember hosting, so I drove back that Sunday night or that Sunday afternoon with Velardi, I believe, or with Gewirtz. And we all drove up and we were on the air forever that Monday morning and just talking and doing the morning show. And I, it's funny, I remember we did a segment.
And Gewirtz and I were talking for so long that the radio gods took over and the emergency alert system just went off in the middle of what must have been a 12-minute talk up. I'm trying to think of. McNaughton and I and Palladino, J Sweet, we did a Halloween show once and that was, obviously it's radio, but we all got dressed up and we encouraged people to come by for candy and for some reason we didn't have the people come to the station.
We went outside with the extension and the microphone and it came to the point where traffic was backing up on Waverly. And the campus police had to come by and tell us just to, to stop giving out candy. Stop encouraging people to line up. It was fun. I remember Brian and I would call up the University of Miami radio station and make bets on the air and for the Syracuse Miami game in 93 or 94.
And we lost the bet and we had to sing their alma mater on the air. But we made up lyrics and they hung up on us. Cause we were insulting them. It was good college fun that we had.
JAG: Oh my G-d, that's amazing. So tell me about your career after Syracuse from where you were getting out and up to where you are now.
Mike: I went to Syracuse to be a baseball announcer. And when we go into, what was Comm 107, I was a broadcast journalism major. And I remember sitting there in the first class and everyone there knew everything about broadcasting and everyone had an opinion and everyone was gonna be the next Bob Costas.
And it was just a matter of getting out of the way so you didn't slow them down. And at that moment I realized that wasn't necessarily my DNA. I went other routes, but I always wanted to work in baseball. And the summer before my senior year, I was offered to be the Yankees radio intern.
JAG: Oh wow.
Mike: Summer of 94. But it was nights and it was in the Bronx or in Manhattan if they were on the road. And I didn't have a car and it was just gonna be a challenge to make it work. So I took a different internship at A Current Affair. Which for those who don't remember, it was the original tabloid TV show.
I interned there five days a week that summer. I took that job because that was, more of the nine to five type of hours. And I did that for the whole summer. I went back over winter break and then come spring break they offered me a job. That they were gonna hold for me till I graduated.
JAG: That is rare in this business.
Mike: It was, but I was willing to do anything. And they would take me up on it. So I was TMZ before there was TMZ. I would just sneak out. So I would ambush people. It was it's funny to a degree to share the stories these days, but it's not always my finest moment. But I ambushed Whitney Houston and Michael Jackson and a whole host of other people.
Again, something that was fun at the time, but not necessarily my favorite thing to do and the show ended up winding down. So I decided to move to LA cuz all my Syracuse friends were out there trying to be TV writers. And then I started at Access Hollywood, at the startup of Access Hollywood. Did that for two years. The hours were worse than any overnight shift I had at JPZ.
JAG: What kinda hours?
Mike: I would get up at 1:50 in the morning. Be in at 3:00 AM and worked till 2:00 PM. Did that for two years. And I just had to get off that. So eventually I made the shift back to sports that I always wanted to do and went to Fox Sports Net, did that for a number of years.
Launched NFL Network. When that started in 03. Then MLB network was starting up. They recruited me to come and be part of the managing editorial group for that. And launched that network. It started January 1st of 09 and then came back to NFL in 2017 back in California. So I've moved back and forth.
This is my third time living in California. I've made the move five times back and forth and hopefully this is home for a while. But it's funny, I oversee events now primarily. So I just came back from the Scouting Combine. But a couple weeks prior to that, I was at the Super Bowl. And I was on the field of the Super Bowl for the game and one of my talents who I work with also calls games on the radio Charles Davis, and for CBS. But it wasn't a CBS Super Bowl.
So Charles Davis was there and he introduced me to Ian Eagle. I had never met Ian before and I know his son Noah a little bit. So my first comment to Ian was, I used to listen to you at FAN when you did overnights. And you would talk about this pizza place that you would go to by Onondaga Community College.
So my friends and I would go there, and of course, the first time we went there, who did we see? Rick Wright. And without taking a pause, Ian goes and says, hey, major market. And to me, that struck me as you could go to University of Mizzou, you could go to Columbia, you could go to Northwestern. There is no chance that any of their esteemed alums can have a conversation with another alum. It all gets boiled down to one person, and that's what makes. Newhouse and JPZ and just the whole Syracuse experience so special is Rick Wright in that he is the thread through everybody.
JAG: And by the way, Ian Eagle keynoted our banquet during Covid in 2021, and it was fantastic. The best piece of advice that Ian Eagle gave in that, and I hope he, he's listening to this.
I hope he doesn't mind me outing him. The best piece of advice that he gave every student and alum on that Zoom banquet that we did, don't be an asshole. That was his advice.
Mike: Words to live by. We can all learn from that.
JAG: It's interesting, Mike, you talk about, walking to Com 107 and being like, okay I'm not gonna be competing with these guys.
I had a similar experience, I'm class of 02, at AER. Okay, these guys have memorized all the stats of these games. I'm not, I'm probably not gonna be a sports guy. And then other classmates of mine were all about news and could watch a newscast and pick it apart. He looked at the wrong camera, she looked at the wrong camera.
And for me, I just fell into the radio in the top 40 side of things. I would imagine we have students and young alumni who are trying to figure out what they want to do, whether that's on air, off air. Can you talk a little bit about some of the things that you do that you're responsible for in your role as senior coordinating producer at NFL Network?
And I know no two days are alike but what your day typically looks like.
Mike: I'm gonna take this in two different parts. I'll tell you a little bit of what my day is and what I do, but I oversee all of our tentpole events, training camp kickoff. Super Bowl, Pro Bowl, Combine, and I do all the planning working with the league, working with our producers, setting up the North Star, if you will, of what our production's gonna look like, manage our budget, and then, have to cut where we need to cut and have to add where I wanna add. But you always, you bring up a great question in regards to people who were at the crossroads in their career. And I get this a lot because I'll talk to soon to be graduates and graduates.
And I'll always tell them, if you wanna be on air, do it young. Don't wait till you're 27 and worked in a different line and maybe you've made $40,000 a year. Because if you're gonna end up in Montana at $12,000 a year, at the radio station, at the TV station, it's a massive change. You don't know what you don't know at 22, at 23 lifestyle-wise, and I would strongly suggest that if that's something that's truly in your DNA, do it sooner than later.
Don't wait to do it now. There are always those people who make the change over later in their career. Karissa Thompson at Fox used to be my HR person at Fox.
JAG: No kidding?
Mike: Now she's a massive host of Fox and Amazon. So there's always those people who do make those changes. But for the most part, if you want to do it while you're just getting outta school.
JAG: That is a fantastic piece of advice. So you're overseeing, like you said, the tentpole events, Super Bowl, Pro Bowl, Draft, Combine, that sort of stuff. What is your role during the regular season?
Mike: It's funny because those events take up the whole season. I have my first Super Bowl in Las Vegas meeting on May 4th.
JAG: For the upcoming Super Bowl. Next year, Super Bowl 58. Oh yeah.
Mike: It's a year-round thing. So my busiest time of year is the summer. So once the season kicks off, September October aren't as busy, but I've been on the road for six of the last seven weeks. I get to catch my breath a little bit now before the next one comes up.
But a training camp is wild, pre-season games, but then it's all full steam ahead to the Super Bowl. This year I was part of the team to, part of the Reimagined Pro Bowl games. I know there's, people might have different opinions of how that played out, but I was part of the committee to help redesign those.
JAG: So as much as you can, as much as you're allowed to, can you take me inside that? Cuz as a football fan I find that interesting that there was a lot of, how do I put this delicately? There was a lot of challenges with the Pro Bowl in the previous setup. And so what went into the process and the mindset to change it up?
Mike: So I'm gonna pull some numbers out of the air, but I think they're pretty close. If the Pro Bowl got 7 million viewers in years past, which is a huge number for an All-Star game, it's a huge number for an NBA finals game or an NHL finals game. But the players didn't enjoy playing it. The players weren't hitting there.
You can replicate a baseball All-Star game. And even if people are playing hard, it looks like a baseball game. And to a degree, same with the NBA. But in football, if players aren't necessarily tackling, you get to the point where people could be at risk injury-wise, right? Because it's not the type of game that they want.
So they want to do something where players were invested in. There was definitely a heavy involvement of a small group of players helping guide us. It was like the Cam Jordan types. Things would get run by a small group and hey, if we did this, would you be interested? If we did that, would you be interested?
Now the numbers were pretty good this year. It was the first year. People didn't necessarily know what it was gonna be. Some people might be turned off just by the whole skills aspect of it, but the players weren't. And we're a partnership with the PA and the players and that was the motivation. We wanted the players to show up.
We didn't get that many players canceling outside the ones obviously who were in the Super Bowl who couldn't attend. There were a handful of guys who didn't show up this year. But for the most part, we got a very strong group of players to commit to play, which is different than in years' past.
JAG: So it sounds like the changes were driven more so by players than fans, because you wanted 'em to actually show up and not say, yeah, I don't feel like going this year.
Mike: Yeah. People tuned in for it, regardless of whether it was good football or not, but it wasn't very good football that was taking place. It was a little bit embarrassing. And we don't want people to get hurt by, playing three quarter speed.
JAG: You mentioned how baseball is your passion growing up, but you came back to the NFL. The NFL is such a juggernaut and is seems to be head and shoulders above all the other sports when it comes to revenue, when it comes to ratings and TV deals and all that. Was that part of the appeal and coming back over to the NFL is just how big the NFL is?
Mike: There are a number of reasons. Yeah. The NFL is the gold standard in American sports. As much as we go back into, talk about the connections that you made at JPZ. The people I work with at the NFL are like family to me.
There are people who I hired at previous jobs when I was at Fox Sports Net, and then when I went to NFL in 03, 04, 05, 06, 07- brought them over and who are still there. People who I grew up in the business with, people who are truly our family to me. So that was the biggest draw back too, being back in Los Angeles, being at a league that is truly state of the art and being with coworkers who I know I could line up with and we'd have each other's back and we'd all be rolling together.
JAG: You told the Ian Eagle story earlier. Any interesting stories you have of run-ins into players or working with players on various things that you talked about, the Pro Bowl, but anything else in the course of your day-to-day, any funny interactions you've had with players?
Mike: That's a good one. Football players and baseball players are really different.
JAG: If you have a baseball player, I'll take that story too.
Mike: Baseball, the guys are more humble. Overall, and this is not to cast a large, paintbrush, but football players have been noted as stars at a young age and have been treated as such for a while.
And the way we work with our own analysts and whatnot is, they're always used to a certain type of, structure, but also way of life. Baseball, they were in the minors. They were on the buses. Even when they became stars, they've still gone through a little more of that, I don't wanna say humbling period, but something where they've, haven't always been the most elite of the elite.
Because they could've been in a town in single A and had terrible conditions that they played in. I worked with someone, Andrew Siciliano, who was a New House alum and I'm not sure if Andrew did JPZ. I knew he was AER. But he was one of the guys who always was focused on being a sports broadcaster and he's followed his dream and has been at N F L for over a decade and was on the DirecTV Red Zone channel for a while as well.
JAG: Speaking of Red Zone, you got Scott Hanson, Syracuse grad too, right?
Mike: Absolutely. And former football player.
JAG: Yeah. At our Sunday brunch in Syracuse the other day, he's part of the Boost the Cuse program that's gonna happen this year. So we saw a promo, we saw an early promo for that, which will probably be long gone by the time you hear this podcast. But in this moment it's upcoming.
Mike: I always talk to people and it's, many of us have had success throughout our careers, and that's the easy part. But the thing about this industry is we're all guaranteed to have setbacks as well. And I take a lot of pride in talking to people and being a rock for them when the chips are down, I've lost my job before.
And it's almost like people don't know how to treat you when you're without a job. It's almost like you're sick. People stay away from you, not because they're afraid to get the illness, if you will, but because they don't know what to say to make you feel better, and it's awkward for them.
And I think exactly it's time for all of us to pick up the phone and reach out to somebody because when you take a step back in this, any of our industries, all you want to do is hear from somebody and not be, not necessarily an outcast, but. You just wanna be accepted. You wanna know everything's gonna be okay. And Newsflash, everything's gonna be okay.
We all have those fears. There's so many people go through the imposter syndrome mindset. But let me tell you. I know people from JPZ from other walks of life who have a little bit of a setback at times, and they don't know what that next step is. But I can promise you 10 times out of 10, Your next opportunity is gonna be better than your previous one.
You're gonna appreciate your job more. You're gonna appreciate your lifestyle more, what you have. And I really feel like we can all be great mentors to each other, to lend a hand to people when you hear like someone could be struggling or might need a friend. And I just would like to get that message out because I think it's an important thing and it's something which really can build a friendship and makes us stronger for each other.
JAG: You're reminding me of the podcast I did with your classmate, the aforementioned Abe Froman slash Steve Donovan. I got on with him expecting to laugh the entire time. And what I really respect about Steve is how vulnerable he was in our podcast episode. It was one of my favorite episodes of the podcast because he talked about losing his gig and having that weird feeling about going back to the banquet without a gig and having that self-consciousness, the imposter syndrome you just mentioned, Mike.
And I mentioned to him, I've been... ClearChannel layoffs would always happen at Christmas time, so I would always be three months into a layoff whenever I'd go to the Banquets. And it's awkward to go and you're afraid to go, but, and if anybody who was at the Banquet this year can see what it just incredible community it is that we're all there to lift each other up.
We're all there to celebrate the triumphs and be proud of each other. And we accomplish great things like so many of us have. But all of us have gotten, as Dr. Wright would say, the old Zig. We've all been there. And we all offer to support each other in those times. I would encourage anybody that's listening to heed Mike's advice, if you're on the beach, as they say, or whatever other euphemism you want to use, if you are out of a gig, if you lose a gig, reach out to your JPZ people cuz we've all been there. We all get it and we all wanna help each other out.
Mike: It's something, as I've gotten older and more experienced, I feel like it's part of my job of and of being a better person and of just being there for people. I'll spend an hour and a half on the phone and you mentioned Steve. After his podcast. I reached out to him and talked to him.
I just think it's so vital for us, especially for the people from the Class of 95 era or 2005. Once you hit that age where it's okay, this is what I'm doing for a living. And when that gets taken from you, now what are you doing for a living? It's important to have those people there around you.
JAG: I think that's a great place to leave it because that is a great descriptor of the JPZ family and how we all try to be there to help each other out. And you came on and made the joke off the top of you must be the last one if I've gotten down to you. But I think we all have that humbleness to us and appreciate each other and try to lift each other up when we need to.
Anything else you wanna talk about before I let you go? Mike? Any other funny stories or anything?
Mike: No, but I had one idea. This is a great thing of what I do for work. I throw out ideas and challenge other people to do it. So say there was a documentary a number of years ago about the greatest media classroom.
There should be something about Rick Wright. There are so many people that he touched. Let's do it while he can enjoy it, there's so many people from so many different walks of life, and I think he's touched all of us. And it would be great to produce something to celebrate and to really showcase Dr. Wright. And we all have our own stories and we all have our own values of love for him and I really think there's something there that we can all rally around. Maybe not next year, but in the next couple years, something we can debut maybe at the Banquet.
JAG: From your lips to everybody's major market ears. Thanks so much for your time today, Mike.
Mike: Thank you so much Jag.