Sports Broacasting

Thanks for the tips. I studied all summer for law school, just as a way out of journalism that I think I'd like. So I'm definitely prepared for that and will likely go there.

It seems the consensus here is that any chance at radio should be done more as a hobby than a career. That sounds like a good option and, yea, the job security is beyond repair.

And FWIW, by "hours are a killer" I meant the night shift; not working a lot. I'll work a lot as a lawyer, I know, but if I get my Friday and Saturday nights free I'll be alright.

 

Go to law school.

I teach by day, broadcast by night, do about 40-50 high school games a year, have a couple dozen to a couple hundred listeners, and make probably $500-1000 doing it and I have the time of my life. It's the most fun I have every week.

You get your reward from other ways, like when we had 1,000+ listening online to a high school regional broadcast last spring ... I think we're pretty good, and we try to be very professional. Do I think I might "hit it big" and get a break and become a minor-league team's pxp guy or something? Nope, but I love what I do, and I still make a decent living between 9-5.

If you want to get started in the "hobby broadcasting" business, I can give you a few pointers, as I've done it very successfully. You can do it for a fairly minimal outlay ... a cheap Behringer mixer, an aircard, a couple pairs of $200 headphone/microphone combos (or, if you want to go really cheap, a couple of $10 handheld mikes and some headsets) a good cell phone plan and a good Internet provider. It's pretty easy to make it happen, and I've been blessed. Check out www.hancockcountysports.com for some of our work if you're interested in seeing how it comes together on the other end.

 

Do you even need a good cell plan now, crimson? Seems like wifi exists everywhere, and I'd think a home school would let you feed through their network, no?

And don't go with the $10 mikes. At least spend $40 or $50 on mikes, even better to buy the headsets crimson referenced. I did games for a number of years on tape (we just ran with cheap mics and a cheap tape recorder), and looking back now I see that the quality was horrible.

 

Depends. The schools I cover, they're still in the technological stone age (the school where I teach has a wifi that I can tap into, but everyone else, probably not as of yet ... my vendor still uses a telephone-based system, so I can use a landline at my school and usually use cell minutes elsewhere) OR they see my little side-business as a competitor for corporate sponsorship dollars, and won't give up their resources for free quite that easily. Some schools are VERY stingy about that, unfortunately. We aren't doing a girls basketball tournament because the gym is in a cellular dead zone (and it's the strongest one in the state) and the school has been somewhat uncooperative with allowing us access to resources in the past.

I use Beyerdynamic headset/mics, good sound quality. Believe it or not, I came across some cheap Nady Starcaster hand-held mics (at about $10-20 each) have some really good sound to them. They're not top of the line, but they sound as good as, if not better, than my broadcast-standard headset-mounted mics.

Some guy we come across every now and then literally holds his cell phone up to his mouth and calls pxp. Not surprisingly, he wears team gear at every game he works and is the ultimate homer. I wouldn't advise doing that.

 

I've was relegated to doing a broadcast from a cell phone back in the day. Not fun.

If you have to go the handheld route, spend the extra money and get the Shure mics. It's almost impossible to make them bark, and if you don't have a stand, hand noise will be minimized. Try a pawn shop. I'd much rather have a beat up old Shure mic, than a Nady fresh out of the box. If at all possible, however, get some headsets.

 

You'd be an absolute fool to decide to go to law school without reading this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/business/09law.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=general

In reality, and based on every other source of information, Mr. Wallerstein and a generation of J.D.’s face the grimmest job market in decades. Since 2008, some 15,000 attorney and legal-staff jobs at large firms have vanished, according to a Northwestern Law study. Associates have been laid off, partners nudged out the door and recruitment programs have been scaled back or eliminated.

And with corporations scrutinizing their legal expenses as never before, more entry-level legal work is now outsourced to contract temporary employees, both in the United States and in countries like India. It’s common to hear lawyers fret about the sort of tectonic shift that crushed the domestic steel industry decades ago.

But improbably enough, law schools have concluded that life for newly minted grads is getting sweeter, at least by one crucial measure. In 1997, when U.S. News first published a statistic called “graduates known to be employed nine months after graduation,” law schools reported an average employment rate of 84 percent. In the most recent U.S. News rankings, 93 percent of grads were working — nearly a 10-point jump.

 

Just like journalism, getting good jobs are about who you know. Clerkships and internships mean a lot.

 

You haven't lived unless you've broadcast a game directly into a phone receiver. Had the board flame out and not work at our first live broadcast from this dumpy hockey rink on the campus station. We brought about 200' of phone line, and stretched it as far as we could. I ended up standing on a chair next to the boards besides the team bench holding a phone to my mouth. Somehow, we managed to get the game on the air -- and a TON of people told me in the following weeks they listened -- but I wasn't exactly putting those clips on a resume tape.

Just last week, we were airing a game (I was coaching in said game, so I wasn't on the air). My partner didn't hear a tone from our automated system, panicked and called in and did several minutes of a game via his cell while trying to repair the connection.

 

The "who you knows" who can actually make something happen for you are getting fewer and fewer. The "who you know" in this market better be the hiring partner, and you better not just "know" him but be his son-in-law. I externed for one federal judge who is a friend of mine and befriended another who taught a class at my school as an adjunct. I made best paper in his class and was a finalist for his post-graduate clerkship (a sweet gig), but he ended hiring someone else from a more prestigious school. He even recommended me to another local attorney he was friends with -- who couldn't pull the trigger on hiring someone. I clerked at a small law after my first year and was well-liked. I worked part-time in a corporate legal counsel's office my 2nd and third year of law school, and sold bar review for Kaplan on the side. I was the editor-in-chief of my law review, honor court justice, graduated cum laude, and was a pupil member of a professional organization of prominent lawyers that meets once a month in town. I tend to get along with most people I meet. I have been successful and respected at my pre-law-school profession.

What did it all lead to? Hanging my shingle because there's not a decent job out there for me. When the state cuts the courts' budgets it not only reduces the number of jobs available, but puts more experienced lawyers out on the street competing with you for jobs. And those are the jobs that people used to consider as fallbacks. Not anymore. I recently interviewed at a large plaintiff's firm for a 6-month contract position. They liked me but said they were going to go with someone who had 3-5 years practice experience... get that? They apparently had no problem finding someone with 3-5 years practice to work a 6-month contract. It's tough out there. I'm surviving, but it's tough.