“People in the broadcasting business do not really care if you have a degree or what it is in.”
Michael Draper said those words when asked about how valuable experience was when trying to become successful in the broadcasting world. Draper, who recently changed his major from broadcasting to teaching and coaching, is one of the personalities behind a new on-campus sports talk show.
“Experience is the most important part of broadcasting,” Draper said. “As long as you know how to do things, you can make it really far in this business. A person can never have too much experience.”
The name of the new show is the Sports Lounge, and the show will be completely student-run. Draper will be co-producing the show with Mike Shatz, as well as appearing on the show as a commentator.
“What we will be covering is all types of sports both here at MSU and on the national scene,” Draper said. “Depending on when the show gets started again, we will cover the World Series, college football, the NFL, NASCAR’s chase for the cup and start getting going with NCAA hoops and the NBA. As for MSU, we will cover whatever big sporting events are going on.”
The show had been put on temporary hold, though the crew has already filmed a pilot episode and its first episode. The Lounge will be shot in the student studio but not until the studio gets new equipment.
“The Sports Lounge, once we get started, could be a very good, big thing here at MSU,” Draper said. “I am wanting not only to do it in my remainder of time here at MSU, but I want this show to be something that continues on through the years at MSU and continues to be a success.”
Once The Sports Lounge gets kicked off, the show will run on MSTV, which is channel 18 in Starkville.
Another student-led sports show is being kicked off this Thursday night, though the talent will be behind microphones rather than cameras.
MSU’s on-campus radio station, 91.1 WMSV, is adding another sports talk radio show to its lineup that will cover the national sports scene.
The show, entitled the Weekend Sports Warmup, is the first in the WMSV lineup to cover sports on a national level.
John Alden Patton and Stephen Cole, both communication majors, are the brains behind the operation and will be the co-hosts of the show.
According to Patton, who also works with Southeastern Drive Time, the show will cover most major sports, including football, baseball and basketball on both the college and professional levels. The Warmup will not touch on high school sports at all.
“Stephen wrote my boss a while back with the idea [to start the show],” Patton said. “Steve [Ellis] was hesitant because he wasn’t sure if it would work well. I talked to Stephen about it, and we drew up a good format for it and presented it to Steve. The main selling point wasn’t necessarily being a national sports show because it’s difficult to be a national sports show in a market like Starkville. Our main selling point was that this is a campus radio station, and we wanted something run by the students.”
The Warmup will air on Thursdays from 6 to 7 p.m. and will preview the upcoming weekend’s major sporting events.
“I’m really excited about the timing of the show,” Cole said. “It’s coming out right as the NBA is starting, as well as when the football season is heating up. It will give us a chance to talk about sports with people when people really care about sports.”
Patton said that though the focus will be primarily on sports at a national level, they are trying to find a way to incorporate some MSU aspects onto the show as well.
Like Draper, Patton knows the benefits of earning valuable experience in the broadcasting field as a student.
“When we do the show,” Patton said, “we’re not trying to entertain ourselves. We’re trying to entertain others.”
Patton also said that listener feedback is greatly encouraged, whether positive or negative.
“We’re starting fresh, and we’re looking forward to that,” Patton said. “We encourage feedback from listeners. I’m not sure if we’re going to take call-ins right off the bat. We’ll have to see how that goes first. We should have plenty to talk about without call-ins when we start out.”