February 7, 2024

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A bright yellow orb is predicted to appear in the sky today here in Las Vegas—something called “the sun” from what I’ve heard. Two days of dreary, rainy weather will cede to sunshine, but it’s still nippy, with a high this week of 52°. In this morning’s special edition Super Bowl LVIII newsletter, which is not soggy, I look at what is now called Media Row, tracing its path from a $40,000 demand by a hotelier to today’s array of radio stations, podcasters, influencers, betting networks, and on and on. Then I pull back the curtain on another event where the league appears to be restricting media access, the NFL Commissioner’s party. And finally: I all but got lost trying to get out of Allegiant Stadium with colleague A.J. Perez. Alas, you’ve found me here. Thanks for reading.

— Dan Kaplan [[link removed]]

How One Hotel’s $40,000 Mistake Birthed the Super Bowl’s Radio Row [[link removed]]

Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

“Seventy-five radio producers begging you for five minutes of [your time].” That’s how San Diego radio personality Darren Smith describes the frenzied scene when a VIP ambles through the Super Bowl’s Radio Row—or Media Row, as it is now known, given new mediums such as podcasts and the inundation of influencers.

The five-day event is both a longstanding tradition and a crucial part of the economic engine that drives business for the NFL and the Super Bowl host city, as a parade of athletes and celebs (almost always with something to sell), agents and league officials trample through dozens and dozens of stations in the media center. Agent Leigh Steinberg says he personally did 71 interviews last year.

This year’s Row has its unique Vegas flashes, including three slot machines emblazoned with NFL logos standing guard in front of the expansive bullpen of radio desks. Outside that radio area are stages and sets for national programs, including those from DraftKings, FanDuel, and Fox Sports Radio, plus the likes of The Pat McAfee Show. It was Tuesday when I visited so the brand-shilling scrum had yet to begin in full.

But it wasn’t always like this. The story starts in 1992, at Super Bowl XXVI in Minneapolis. Mike Francesa and Chris Russo, then star radio personalities with WFAN in New York City, asked to broadcast from the lobby of the hotel where the league had set up its headquarters, the Hyatt. Jim Steeg was the NFL’s head of events at the time, and he says this marked the first instance of talent of this magnitude wanting to broadcast from the host city.

“The Hyatt said they could [do it]—if they paid $40,000,” says Steeg. (That’s nearly $87,000 today, adjusted for inflation.) “I remember talking to the GM of the hotel, saying, ‘Don’t do that. That’s a major mistake. They’ve got a bigger voice than you realize.’” Alas, the Hyatt wouldn’t budge, so Francesa and Russo—Mike and the Mad Dog—set up in a Holiday Inn across the street, at no charge, Steeg recalls.

The incident got Steeg thinking: Radio stations, which provided the NFL great exposure, needed a place to set up during the week of the Big Game. And so, in 1993, in Pasadena, Calif., Radio Row was born. By Steeg’s estimation, it all started with 10 to 12 stations—“the first guys of any consequence wanting to broadcast a radio show out of there.”

Russo, for his part, doesn’t remember much about Minneapolis—the $40,000 demand, he’d never heard that before. But he remembers the next year well, right down to the days before, when he says he and Francesa flew in from a golf excursion at Pebble Beach and Francesca got ill on the plane. “In ’93, I believe it was in a [hotel] conference room … where there were eight to 10 radio stations,” Russo says. “Now you are in a convention center with 500.”

In actuality, the number today is likely in the high double digits. (The NFL would not share an exact figure.) But Russo’s hyperbole underscores the growth of the league as a business boomlet that generates big bucks not just for owners but for the commercial interests, like radio, that feed off the sport. “It’s not about Radio Row as much as it is about driving audience and driving finances,” says Don Martin, executive vice president for iHeartMedia Sports. “The NFL is a solid business for audio companies. So [you’ll travel to] the Super Bowl if you have a choice to be there with one of your shows.” Such is the allure that even Audacy, the digital radio platform that operates CBS Sports Radio, still sent stations to the Super Bowl—even as it is in bankruptcy.

Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports More Like Skid Row?

Of course, there are those, like Smith, the San Diego radio host, who say Radio Row is on the decline—that it has turned into one long conga line of product pitches. In fact, ESPN Radio did not even make the trip this year. Even Russo, the Godfather of the event, admits it’s a problem. “Spot after spot after spot after spot, and it gets a little monotonous,” he says. “You got a guy … and this is his eighth radio station that he has done in three hours … and he’s not going to be as peppy for you as he was for station number three.”

Still, Russo (above, right, with Rich Eisen on Radio Row before Super Bowl LIII) is a believer in onsite radio, because it leads to in-person interviews. Annually, he says, Chiefs owner Clark Hunt and Falcons owner Arthur Blank speak to him.

“They’re not coming on [my show if they’re] at the Super Bowl and I’m back in New York,” he says. But “if I’m in the building, and [they’re] walking around … I’ve got a good chance to get [them].”

The Party’s Over—for Some of Us

Tony Tomsic-USA TODAY NETWORK

After the NFL restricted media entrants to the commissioner’s press conference Monday, it appears the league may also be trying to exclude the fourth estate from getting invites to the exclusive commissioner’s Super Bowl party, held annually on the Friday evening before the game.

For the first time, tickets to the party, which will be held at the Wynn, are digital, according to a source who normally provides this reporter with a pass but did not this year. (My source: “I’m concerned they are trying to minimize the media.”) A digital ticket would indicate who initially received the pass, allowing the league to track the path of the ducat.

A few observations: Previously, these weren’t paper tickets akin to what you’d get for a sporting event. Commissioner party tickets were large (usually too wide to fit into my suit jacket pocket), they were emblazoned with fancy images and lettering, and they were typically made of some hard-as-a-rock material. They would have made good weapons.

Former commissioner Pete Rozelle (above, at Super Bowl III) started the party back in 1967 for the media at the inaugural Super Bowl in Los Angeles. “It was a surprise event for the media at the first game, held in the ballroom of the Statler Hilton,” says Steeg, the NFL’s old head of events.

That party grew into an unwieldy festivity attended by thousands, including owners, league staff, NFL partners, politicians, celebrities, and—lucky us—media, who dined on high-end food and watched A-list musicians like John Legend perform. The first party I attended, in 2004 in Houston, was on the floor of the Astrodome, and it was packed.

In 2012, at Super Bowl XLVI in Indianapolis, the league reined in the party: Invites were severely culled, and media members could no longer get them directly from the league communications staff. But plugged-in media could always get one. And for those who did attend, it was a chance to rub elbows with network chiefs and CEOs of major brands. Even the NFLPA attended.

I can’t remember the year, but at one commissioner’s party I bumped into Jeff Kessler, the NFLPA’s bulldog outside counsel. At the time, relations were tense between the league and the players’ union, and the union that night hosted its own event. So I asked Kessler why he wasn’t at the union party. Balancing a small plate of food as we stood, he replied, “The food is better here.”

Unfortunately, I won’t get to taste Friday’s culinary offerings.

Lost Vegas

Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

I tend to think I’m good with directions—but getting out of Allegiant Stadium on Monday following Media Night proved a confusing 20 minutes of perplexing wayfinding. I know, woe is me eyeroll. This is only meant as a note to the stadium operator, and to anyone planning to attend.

Allegiant has a few main entrances/exits: one on the north end and two on the south side, and I didn’t see any wayfinding signs that directed one either way. But I did encounter an array of red exit signs that in one instance directed media to stairs … which security said were off limits. (Finally, a staffer walked me and a colleague to the north exit after we expressed our collective frustrations.) Perhaps it’s just me, but clearer directional signs would be nice.

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ONE BIG FIG Super Bets

USA TODAY

67.8 million

Number of U.S. adults who are expected to bet on Super Bowl LVIII, according to a new American Gaming Association [[link removed]] survey. The projected record number of bettors—an increase of 35% compared to 2023—are expected to wager an estimated $23.1 billion on this year’s game, which is up from $16 billion last year.

FRONT OFFICE SPORTS TODAY They Said What?

Dartmouth Athletics

“This really could be the death knell. This could be the end of the NCAA amateurism model as we know it.”

—Reporter Amanda Christovich on the NLRB’s ruling that Dartmouth College’s men’s basketball players are considered employees. Check out the latest episode of Front Office Sports Today to hear all the potential repercussions of a massive decision in college athletics.

🎧 Listen and subscribe on Apple [[link removed]], Google [[link removed]], and Spotify [[link removed]].

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