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SI Media Mailbag: Charles Barkley; NFL Broadcaster Assignments; Sunday Ticket, More

In Jimmy Traina’s SI Media Mailbag, he answers questions about his podcast with Charles Barkley, NFL broadcasters calling preseason games, Sunday Ticket and more.

Jimmy Traina

Welcome to the 20th installment of a weekly mailbag that I will be writing about the world of sports media (and anything else you want to chime in on). Please email me any questions you have to Jimmy.Traina@si.com or send them via Twitter.

My podcast last week with Charles Barkley generated a lot of questions. 

I was given Barkley’s number Aug 1. I waited until Aug. 8 to get the courage to text him. I wasn’t necessarily nervous about texting him. I was nervous about not getting a response. I thought it would be 50/50 that he’d respond and 90/10 that he would say he wasn’t interested in coming on the podcast. It ended up being one of the easiest bookings I’ve had once I made contact with a potential guest. Go figure. He even showed up five minutes early for the taping, and nobody ever shows up early. And I certainly did not expect Barkley to give me 90 minutes of his time, so it was worth the five-year wait to get him on the show.

Chris “Mad Dog” Russo and his producer, Eddie Erickson, were responsible for my getting in touch with Barkley after Russo was on SI Media With Jimmy Traina. In fact, Russo explained all this on his SiriusXM show long before Barkley was actually booked, which made me nervous. 

But there was a good twist with the story because Russo had told me he couldn’t get Troy Aikman on his radio show, and it turned out that Aikman had listened to my podcast with Russo and heard him say that and ended up texting Russo that he’d be happy to go on his show.

I cannot break that rule because the only thing those people want is publicity and I refuse to give it to them, but if you read Traina Thoughts on a daily basis, it shouldn’t be that difficult to figure out which sports media I don’t write about.

Stay tuned. I’m working on another big sports media guest who has never been on the SI Media Podcast podcast before and I'm hoping he'll be on in the next few weeks.

As for my list of most-wanted guests, there are some outside-the-box shows I’d like to do. I have Ian Eagle on regularly and I’ve had Bill Raftery on, but I’d love to get them on the show together.

I’ve had Tony Romo on the show only once, and he was promoting something at the time, so I’d love to get him on for an extended interview to just talk shop. 

I've always wanted to have Bryant Gumbel on (mainly to ask him what he scribbles down in between segments on Real Sports), but he doesn’t do many interviews and I couldn’t get him.

I wanted to have Bob Uecker on the podcast, but when I made the request last year, the Brewers shot me down in about five seconds.

Many national broadcasters call preseason games for local teams. Off the top of my head, Ian Eagle does Jets preseason games, Kevin Harlan calls Packers preseason games and Andrew Catalon handles Bills preseason games. So it’s not unusual that Steve Levy is the voice of Broncos preseason games.

I’m the last person who should answer this because I don’t even know who Brian Boucher is, but after Googling, I saw that he’s a sideline reporter. Bob Wischusen and Sean McDonough are play-by-play guys, so Boucher leaving ESPN for TNT will have no effect on those two guys.

Maybe I’m naive, but I don’t think COVID-19 had any impact on streaming. Everything was heading toward streaming since nobody under 35 subscribes to cable. I do think COVID-19 may have had a tiny impact on people cutting the cord because people may have lost jobs, or money wasn’t coming into a household like it was before the pandemic. But COVID-19 had zero impact on the amount of streaming in sports. 

Barring, God forbid, health issues, John Sterling will never voluntarily leave the Yankees booth. Nor should he.

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Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Sopranos, The Office, The Honeymooners.

Back-in parkers are in the top 15 to 20 worst people in the world. I especially love it when a parking lot is full and cars and circling like crazy looking for an open spot, going in both directions, and then someone decides to hold everyone up by backing in. Just no self-awareness.

We had some Instagram questions this week.

Don’t you get the sneaking suspicion the first week of Sunday Ticket is going to be a disaster? —@adamjbrady

I wrote last week that there are going to be issues with Sunday Ticket this season as it transitions from DirecTV to YouTube.

I think the biggest problem is that people are going to have to adjust to the new features offered by YouTube and the elimination of features that were provided by DirecTV. I expect things to be a disaster in terms of people signing up, figuring out how to work the new setup and just getting used to the newness of Sunday Ticket on YouTube.

I think after a week or two, it will be smooth sailing, though.

Do lead announcers like Jim Nantz and Kevin Burkhardt get to choose their NFL game of preference? —@Richoyka

I would imagine Nantz has major input into his assignments given how long he’s been at CBS, but the decision on where to send which broadcast crews each Sunday is made by network executives, who also determine what percentage of the country gets each game.

What’s the lock of the year for an NFL Futures bet? —@Tingeydan

I wish I knew. But I will bet on the following future wagers for the 2023 NFL season: 

Giants over 7.5 (+100)
Steelers over 8.5 (-145)
Chiefs over 11.5 (-140)
Browns under 9.5 (-130)
Bucs under 6.5 (-140)

If you made me pick one lock, I’d go with the Bucs under. That roster is as bad as it gets.

Why are the Yankees still employing Aaron Boone and Brian Cashman? —@Thejshield

Because ownership no longer cares about winning the World Series. The team still prints money, and ownership doesn’t want to mess with that. 

New Sopranos season based on unused footage or Brian Cashman fired? You can only pick one. —@evens4hw

The best question of the week. It took me about 10 minutes to come up with an answer, but I’m going with the Yankees parting ways with Brian Cashman. The Sopranos was perfect. (The movie was awful). I have no problem with just leaving it as is. Having said that, I would have been in favor of a reboot if James Gandolfini was still with us, but I think the series is best left as is. My baseball team is a complete disaster and in desperate need of a change from top to bottom.

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Jimmy Traina
JIMMY TRAINA

Jimmy Traina is a staff writer and podcast host for Sports Illustrated. A 20-year veteran in the industry, he’s been covering the sports media landscape for seven years and writes a daily column, Traina Thoughts. Traina has hosted the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast since 2018, a show known for interviews with some of the most important and powerful people in sports media. He also was the creator and writer of SI’s Hot Clicks feature from 2007 to '13.

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