Michael J Whelan, Former VP of Production For Golf Channel - Encore
This podcast episode features an enlightening conversation with Mike Whalen, a distinguished figure in the realm of sports broadcasting, who reflects on his pivotal role in establishing the Golf Channel. Whalen recounts the challenges and triumphs of creating a network from the ground up, emphasizing the importance of inclusivity and compelling storytelling in sports media. Through his narrative, we gain insights into the evolution of golf broadcasting and the dynamic interplay between production quality and audience engagement. Moreover, the discussion delves into the contemporary landscape of sports commentary, addressing the influence of social media and its implications on public discourse. Ultimately, this episode serves as a profound exploration of the intersection between sports, media, and community engagement, revealing Whalen's enduring impact on the golfing world.
Links referenced in this episode:
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- Painted Hills Natural Beef
- Birdie Ball
- Golf Channel
- HBO
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy
Transcript
It's time for grilling at the green.
Speaker A:Join Jeff Tracy as he explores the golfing lifestyle and tries to keep it in short grass for the hackers, new sweepers and turf spankers.
Speaker A:Here's Jeff.
Speaker A:Hey, everybody.
Speaker B:Welcome to grilling at the green here on AM860 in Portland and in Texas and in Oklahoma and the golf News Network and the 24.7iheart channel there on Golf News Network.
Speaker B:We appreciate that.
Speaker B:We'd like to thank the folks at Painted Hills natural beef Beef the way nature intended.
Speaker B:And also John Breaker and his crew back at Birdie ball.
Speaker B: as named the best golf mat in: Speaker B:So you can find out more about that@birdieball.com we've got a great guest today.
Speaker B:I've been looking forward to talking with Mike for a long time.
Speaker B:This is the first time we've ever actually seen each other.
Speaker B:We communicated a lot, but this is the first time he's been on the show.
Speaker B:We'll do that.
Speaker B:Mike Whalen, he's the former Golf Channel VP of production and executive producer.
Speaker B:He worked at hbo.
Speaker B:He's won Emmys.
Speaker B:He's.
Speaker B:He won a lot, dude.
Speaker B:Peabody's.
Speaker B:That's good.
Speaker B:Every time.
Speaker B:I will tell you this, Michael.
Speaker B:Every time I.
Speaker B:I hear a Peabody Award, I think of that old cartoon with Sherman and Mr.
Speaker B:Peabody.
Speaker A:I.
Speaker A:I've got a Peabody Award, Jeff, that sits in my.
Speaker A:In my bedroom, and I hang towels on it right now.
Speaker B:There you go.
Speaker A:So that's what all these awards end up being at some point in one's life.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:If you could see it.
Speaker B:Well, I've got the green screen thing on, but if you can see behind me, I was in the horse business for a long time.
Speaker B:Got plenty of awards.
Speaker B:Some nice big bronzes and crystal and all that stuff.
Speaker B:And I put my golf hats on them.
Speaker A:So I do.
Speaker A:At some point, you know, in the very beginning, you show them off, you take them to the clubs, and then at some point, they become hangers.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:For your underwear and wet.
Speaker A:And wet bath towels.
Speaker B:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker A:But I will say this.
Speaker A:It's a pleasure hanging out with you.
Speaker A:We've been following one another for many, many years.
Speaker A:So I'm glad.
Speaker A:I'm glad we finally caught up.
Speaker B:I am, too.
Speaker B:I'm very.
Speaker B:I'm very happy about that.
Speaker B:Very grateful that.
Speaker B:That you could find the time and be willing to be on this show.
Speaker B:So, Mike, let's just give a little bit of a summary here for people who don't know you I don't know that any of the people that listen to the show that wouldn't recognize who you are.
Speaker B:But you went from HBO to the Golf Channel.
Speaker B:But I don't know how you got to hbo.
Speaker A:Well, it's kind of funny.
Speaker A:I went to College at St.
Speaker A:Mary's College in Moraga, California.
Speaker A:The, the Galloping Gales.
Speaker A:And I actually went to New York in the early, early 80s to be a doctor.
Speaker A:I was a pre med student.
Speaker A:My dad was with the New York Knicks, the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Rochester Red Wings.
Speaker A:He was in medicine.
Speaker A:So I was going to follow after dad and got accepted to NYU medical school.
Speaker A:I went to NYU and about six weeks before school was to start, I was dating a girl at the time who happened to be an actress in a sitcom.
Speaker A:And I went to one of her tapings and it was the most exciting, interesting thing I had ever seen.
Speaker A:I sat in the control room and that night at a party I happened to meet the president of CBS Sports, who knew my father, who was a big shot with the Knicks, and said, hey Mike, if you decide not to be a doctor, here's my card, give me a call.
Speaker A:And a week later I said, you know what, I don't want to be a doctor.
Speaker A:I'd rather be in that television business.
Speaker A:And that's how I hooked up with cbs.
Speaker B:Well, good for you.
Speaker A:After about a year and a half at cbs, they made budget cuts.
Speaker A:I was let go and I got hired for a one shot fight with Marvin Hagler.
Speaker A:And that's those 14 days lasted almost 14 years.
Speaker B:Marvelous Marvin.
Speaker B:I loved him.
Speaker B:I loved him.
Speaker B:You know, it's funny, when I was a teenager, same thing, I was a pre med student.
Speaker B:Well after I got out of high school, obviously down at Cal Poly in Pomona, and then I was supposed to go to UC Davis, I was going to be a veterinarian, right?
Speaker B:Something similar happened to me.
Speaker B:I went over to Hollywood and watched them film an episode of the Bionic Woman.
Speaker B:And I was actually, if, if you find the right cut of that, I'm actually a guy kind of a, an extra way in the back with my.
Speaker B:I had red hair that really gray now, but you know, like that.
Speaker B:And I went, oh, I like this.
Speaker A:So, you know, if you've never gone to see a television show production, it's dynamic, it's exciting.
Speaker A:And for those of us who are sports people, there's sort of a parallel to the sports world.
Speaker A:They work as a team, they execute.
Speaker A:It was absolutely fascinating to me.
Speaker A:And I knew right then and there I'd always been a writer, but if I could get into this business, man, this is what would make me happy.
Speaker B:Yep, absolutely.
Speaker B:I know my folks were kind of devastated when I said, I'm not going to be a veterinarian.
Speaker B:Go do something else.
Speaker B:And they went, ah.
Speaker B:But they got over it.
Speaker A:Well, my dad, hey, my dad threw me out of the house.
Speaker A:He thought I had lost my mind.
Speaker B:Oh.
Speaker A:I mean, how many people get accepted to NYU Medical school?
Speaker A:I, I came back and I said, hey, dad, I'm going to work for a $14,000 a year job.
Speaker A:And, and he said, you know, pack your bags and get out of here.
Speaker A:About seven years later, you know, he put his arm around me and he's.
Speaker A:I knew you do it all the time, Mike.
Speaker A:I, I, you know, I had confidence with you, but, but, yeah, I rolled the dice.
Speaker A:I never imagined that I would be where I am today.
Speaker A:But it's, you know, if you follow your heart, it takes you to great places.
Speaker B:That is true.
Speaker B:That is true.
Speaker B:So I'm somewhat familiar with the beginning of the Golf Channel and Joe Gibbs and all that, because I had a really good friend who got me started in the TV stuff who worked for the CBS channel here in Portland.
Speaker B:All right?
Speaker B:And he was their GSM at the time.
Speaker B:And somebody, I don't know who it was, but somebody came into town and hit all the local TV executives and ask him if they wanted to put up $25,000 a piece to make this work now.
Speaker B:And Brian's gone now, but he said, yeah, he was a pretty conservative guy.
Speaker B:He was.
Speaker B:That was a little, little risky for him, I guess, but that's the first time I'd ever heard about it, because I had heard, and this was back in the, I guess the early 90s or whatever, when they were, they were just kind of getting going, talking about it, trying to put it together.
Speaker B:I don't know the exact date.
Speaker B:I don't remember, Mike, but, but that's when I first heard about it.
Speaker B:And they said, oh, there's going to be a, a dedicated Golf Channel on cable.
Speaker B:And, you know, people kind of scratch their head.
Speaker B:And then, then, you know, a couple of years later, there you are and there's the crew.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's.
Speaker B:Well.
Speaker A: w I found out about it was in: Speaker A: In: Speaker A:He negotiated all of the HBO shows Came up to me one day and just kind of mysteriously whispered into my ear, I might have something for you in a couple of weeks.
Speaker A:Now, I had no idea what the hell that meant.
Speaker A:Oh, sure, yeah.
Speaker A:I mean, so I thought that Bob Greenway, who it turned out to be, was leaving HBO to take another network job and that he was going to bring me along with him.
Speaker A:At the time, Bob looked at me as the top producer at hbo, not just for the quality of what I did, but I was a very fast producer and I could put shows together very quickly.
Speaker A:A couple of weeks later, Bob called me, said, let's meet for a drink.
Speaker A:We went and had a cocktail.
Speaker A:And he said, I've been hired to become the senior vice president of production and programming of the Golf Channel.
Speaker A:It's going to take place in Orlando, Florida.
Speaker A:It's back.
Speaker A:They've raised about $65 million.
Speaker A:And what I would like you to do is be my Ed guy.
Speaker A:I want you to create the entire network.
Speaker A:You got five months to do it.
Speaker A:You've got some chewing gum, some spit and some mud instead of money.
Speaker A:But you're going to be able to put your stamp on an entire network.
Speaker A:Are you interested?
Speaker A:It happened to be a horrible rainy day In Manhattan, about 15 degrees.
Speaker A:And I said, Orlando, it's 85 and sunny.
Speaker A:I accept the job.
Speaker B:There you go.
Speaker A:So that, that's really how.
Speaker A:That's really how it happened.
Speaker B:We're going to be right back.
Speaker B:Mike and I will stay with us.
Speaker B:Hi, everybody, it's jt and this is a special version of Grilling at the Green.
Speaker B:Grilling at the Green is brought to you in part by Painted Hills Natural Beef.
Speaker B:Beef you can be proud to serve your family and friends.
Speaker B:That's Painted Hills Natural Beef.
Speaker B:Welcome back to Grilling at the Green.
Speaker B:As I said, we're on multiple platforms, multiple streaming services, multiple radio stations.
Speaker B:There's enough of me to be multiplied several times.
Speaker B:Anyway, we're talking with Mike Whalen today and there's nothing like trying to do what they handed you your assignment sheet and said here, you've got to build all this.
Speaker B:And by the way, you got to have it done in six hours.
Speaker B:That must have been a bit nerve wracking.
Speaker A:You know, I was so busy and so inundated for what I needed to do.
Speaker A:The pressure didn't hit me from the get go.
Speaker A:You know, when I got hired, there hadn't been one person hired.
Speaker A:There was no concept of any programming.
Speaker A:There was nothing.
Speaker A:There was a 50 square foot blank office in Orlando, Florida, that That I had to fill very, very quickly.
Speaker A:To give you a little backstory, when I got hired, there was two networks that were starting a niche program.
Speaker A:The Golf Channel, led by me.
Speaker A:I had five months and, and about three and a half dollars.
Speaker A:There was Fox News, led by Rupert Murdoch and Roger ailes, that had 18 months and $2.5 billion to do it.
Speaker A:So I got hired and I arrived in Orlando in July of 94 on a flight from New York to London, which was one of my last productions for hbo.
Speaker A:I produced Wimbledon Tennis.
Speaker A:I scratched on a cocktail Napkin the entire 365, seven day a week, 24 hour concept of what I wanted the Golf Channel to be.
Speaker A:So when I arrived in Orlando in July into a blank office with a huge white erase board, I just started to put down the shows, the amount of people, the sets, and I spent weeks hiring people.
Speaker A:I was probably the most feared executive in the month of July because I was raiding every single network of every available man and woman who knew about production in golf.
Speaker A:And I had a bullseye on my back.
Speaker B:I bet you did.
Speaker B:I bet you did.
Speaker B:Are any of the people you hired, well, Rich Lerner still there, but any of the other people still there in front of the camera?
Speaker B:Probably some of the production people are still there.
Speaker A:There are very few production people.
Speaker A:Rich was not one of the original hires.
Speaker A:He came in, I believe, towards the end of 95, but Rich is the.
Speaker A:Rich is the only guy there.
Speaker A:I mean, we're talking about, you know, when I walked into the office, There was about 823 demo reels in about four or five boxes of people wanting to be on camera.
Speaker A:I ended up hiring 14 of them.
Speaker A:I looked through all 800.
Speaker A:I mean, you got guys like Brian Hammons and Craig Tan, you know, Tom Nettles, Jennifer Mills.
Speaker A:Rich Lerner ended up coming down.
Speaker A:Scott Van Pelt at the time was just a production assistant.
Speaker A:Kelly Tillman worked in the library.
Speaker A:So I mean, Mark Lai, Tim Rosenford I hired.
Speaker A:The biggest name at the time was Peter Kessler.
Speaker B:Sure, sure.
Speaker B:And Kessler had such a nice way.
Speaker B:I always enjoyed whatever he did, whether it was a voiceover or an interview, whatever.
Speaker B:I always enjoyed what, what Peter Kessler did.
Speaker B:I don't know him personally, but I just, I liked his work.
Speaker A:Jeff, I will say this with full honesty.
Speaker A:Without Peter Kessler, I'm not sure the Golf Channel would have made it.
Speaker A:I can see that when we flipped the switch, there were thousands of people, most of them advertisers, marketing, distributors, people who were going to invest a lot of money in this thing called the Golf Channel.
Speaker A:And when we flipped on the switch and they saw the quality of the production and they saw what Peter Kessler could do, a photographic, very inviting person.
Speaker A:People said, you know what?
Speaker A:I think this place has legs.
Speaker A:Without Peter, it would have hit an iceberg like the Titanic.
Speaker B:It wouldn't if.
Speaker B:If what they were putting on the air today was your out of the shoot productions.
Speaker B:You know, not worried about the sets or anything like that because they're opulent now and all that.
Speaker B:But as far as the quality of reporting and the analysis and stuff, how do you think that would stand up?
Speaker A:Well, when I flew from New York to London, I wrote down one word about the Golf Channel, and the word that I wrote was intimate.
Speaker A:I wanted the Golf Channel to be a special place where people like you and I and millions others who love the game as much as we do would make it must see tv.
Speaker A:I wanted people to love to listen to Peter talk to Arnold and Nancy Lopez and Pete Dye.
Speaker A:I wanted people to learn how to improve their game by Jim McLean's and Jim Flicks and Dean Ryman.
Speaker A:I wanted people to learn how to make clubs.
Speaker A:I wanted the intimacy of going behind the scenes and having personalities drive it.
Speaker A:I used to be an old fan when I was young of Larry King, and I used to listen to Larry King all night long on the radio and how the same people would call Larry every single night in the relationship.
Speaker A:I wanted that to be the Golf Channel.
Speaker A:So the ability for people to call into Golf Talk Live or Academy Live or Golf Channel Workshop or Viewers Forum and talk to Arnold Palmer.
Speaker A:My God, I made people's lives for three or four years.
Speaker B:Oh, at least.
Speaker B:At least.
Speaker B:I mean, you would grant them something that would be only in their most profound wishes if they could talk to Arnold, for example, or Nancy or any of those people.
Speaker A:Hey, today.
Speaker A:It's Today.
Speaker A:It's The Today Show 2.0.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:I mean, that's what it is.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker A:It's lost all of that.
Speaker A:It lost the heart and soul of what I develop and so many fine men and women produced.
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker B:We're going to take another break.
Speaker B:We're going to be back with Mike Whalen in just a couple minutes.
Speaker B:And you're going to enjoy it.
Speaker B:I guarantee it.
Speaker B:We'll be right back.
Speaker B: named the best putting mat in: Speaker B:It was the mats from Birdie Ball.
Speaker B:It'll help you sink more putts and make more Birdies with a birdie Ball putting green, all in the comfort of your own home.
Speaker B:Check out Birdie ball online@birdieball.com Birdie Ball is here to make golf more fun and accessible.
Speaker B:Find out more@birdieball.com welcome back to Grilling.
Speaker B:It's green here on AM860 in Portland.
Speaker B:That's our home station.
Speaker B:And then we've got stations around the country.
Speaker B:And like I said, we're now on the I heart 247 on Golf Newsnet channel there.
Speaker B:We'd like to thank again the folks at Birdie ball.
Speaker B:Go to birdieball.com if you want to find out more about their products.
Speaker B:And also Painted Hills Natural Beef, Beef the way nature intended.
Speaker B:As you know, I cook, and folks at Painted Hills have been with me a long time, and I really appreciate all their efforts.
Speaker B:We're talking with Michael.
Speaker B:The official name is Michael J.
Speaker B:Whelan, but we're going to call him Mike tonight.
Speaker B:And it's really cool.
Speaker B:So have the stories and the writing improved or taken a different direction at the Golf Channel from when you started?
Speaker B:That's what I think, Mike.
Speaker B:That's what people don't understand about television.
Speaker B:There's a lot of writing involved.
Speaker B:If you've not worked on it, you don't understand.
Speaker B:People just don't sit down and look at the camera and go, hi, you know, and off you go.
Speaker A:Well, it's, you know, me being a writer, it was very, very important that we were great storytellers as well.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Peter Kessler was a fabulous writer.
Speaker A:Rich Lerner to this day, continues to be a fabulous writer.
Speaker A:You know, we hired a gentleman from Golf Week by the name of George White, fabulous writer.
Speaker A:So the writing had to match the pictures.
Speaker A:The writing had to be the catalyst that moved people from laughing to smiling to, to remembering to nostalgia.
Speaker A:So the writing was very, very important in the early days.
Speaker A:You don't hear it very often today.
Speaker A:You don't hear the documentaries like you did.
Speaker A:You don't see the vignettes like you once did.
Speaker A:Look, there are some talented people there.
Speaker A:Chambly can write, Rich can write.
Speaker A: st not what I created back in: Speaker A:It's just different.
Speaker A:It's run by people with very sharp number two pencils who care about the bottom line more than they do about the beauty and the love of the game.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, you can, you can tell that.
Speaker B:And it, like so many things in the media business or just in life in general.
Speaker B:You know, it starts out really good and you build a really good basis.
Speaker B:But after, after the big dollar boys get in there, things always change.
Speaker B:You know, then that's their, it's, yeah.
Speaker A:It'S a, it's inevitable.
Speaker A:I think it's, it, yeah, I, I, I, I get, I guess it is, I guess, you know, everything is dollars and cents.
Speaker A:You know, if I, if I was the president, if I was, you know, the, the president of Comcast and I was running NBC, it's the bottom line.
Speaker A:I've got to look at what the ratings are.
Speaker A:As long as the ratings are similar, as long as the advertisers are still paying top dollar for 15 for 30 second spots for infomercials, then it's not a really big deal to me as it was.
Speaker A: hours like I used to back in: Speaker A:And I get thousands of Texas emails, DMS a year telling me the same thing.
Speaker A:You know, it's just, it's just not the same.
Speaker B:So that leads me, Mike, to ask you this.
Speaker B:We met through social media, so there are some very good aspects to it.
Speaker B:But you know, we always talk about growing the game and sometimes it gets a little ad nauseam almost because it's, it's turned into a cliche for some people.
Speaker B:And that's just my view.
Speaker B:Okay, but then you get the social media platforms out there and I wanted your take to see if they've helped or hurt the Golf Channel in particular or golf in general, because, man, there is a lot of visceral stuff going on out there now.
Speaker B:And you, you said before, you know, you get lots and lots of messages, you get trolled on stuff.
Speaker B:I'm not so sure that we're doing golf a favor sometimes by all the things that are happening.
Speaker B:We're going to get to Liv pretty soon here, but I, I just wanted your general take on that.
Speaker A:Yeah, I, I, I, I, I, I don't know if social media has, has helped.
Speaker A:And let's not just talk off.
Speaker A:I think it has to do with all the sports around the spectrum.
Speaker A:I think there was a time when we all kind of waited for our one or two shows a night.
Speaker A:We waited for our Sports Illustrated, our Golf Digest, but now we can get it 24 7.
Speaker A:And I think what it's done is it's given an awkward permission to too many people who, who just aren't qualified to give the opinions and understand the dynamics of how things are put together and, and, and what it's become.
Speaker A:It's become a, it's become more of a TMZ National Enquirer of shocking people, of, of hating on people, of pointing fingers.
Speaker A:There's not a lot of good that comes out of social media in the world of sports any longer that I see.
Speaker A:Every now and then something happens, but for the most part, it's a bunch of people pounding their keys as hard as they can to explain why people suck, networks suck, the future of sports suck, you know, why people should get fired.
Speaker A:And I mean, it just goes on and on and on, and it's a very divisive thing.
Speaker A:Sports today is no different than the politics of the world.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker A:Either you're for him or you're for him.
Speaker A:And regardless, there is no middle ground any longer.
Speaker A:And all of your, you know, eggs are in one basket and you're going to do everything you can to bring down the PGA Tour or you're going to do everything you can to bring down Liv Golf.
Speaker A:You're going to vote for Biden or you're going to vote for Trump.
Speaker A:There's no middle thing.
Speaker A:And it's really transferred into the sports world, unfortunately.
Speaker B:Yeah, Mike, I couldn't agree with you more because you and I are about the same age.
Speaker B:We grew up.
Speaker B:I remember talk about, not about our personal politics, but I remember reading stories, you know, when Reagan was president and Tip o' Neill was speaker and they would battle back and forth, but at 7 o' clock, they'd go sit down and have a drink together, you know, and, and talk.
Speaker B:They didn't happen every day.
Speaker B:But my point is, even though they were doing battle in the political arena, they were still pretty cordial to each other.
Speaker B:They knew they had to come up with solutions, and they did.
Speaker B:Now you can reverse that and put a, you know, President Clinton in office and, and Gingrich and that, so it's a reverse role there, but they still got stuff done.
Speaker B:I, and that transfers over into sports too now.
Speaker B:But I don't see that.
Speaker B:I, I agree with you.
Speaker B:It's all like at loggerheads and it's, it's disappointing to me.
Speaker A:I, I, yeah, I, I, you know, I don't know when it started, Jeff.
Speaker A:I'm trying to, to think back.
Speaker A:I, I, I think it started earlier than the Trump era, but, you know, it's, you know, there was always civil discourse as long as I could ever remember.
Speaker A:Hey, look, it's not a surprise, if you follow me.
Speaker A:I'm a lifelong Democrat.
Speaker A:I'm a Northern California boy.
Speaker A:Having said that, I also voted for Ronald Reagan unapologetically because I thought he was the best person for the job back in the 80s.
Speaker A:Yep.
Speaker A:That, that would never be, that would never happen today.
Speaker A:Oh, no, never.
Speaker A:We will never see crossing the aisles any longer.
Speaker A:But as you say, it's, it's the, it's the, the visceral anger and hate and violence and the way we talk to one another.
Speaker A:And it's, you know, it's, I don't think there's any of us in this industry who don't think about it.
Speaker A:I've got to get off of Twitter.
Speaker A:I've got to stop this.
Speaker A:I've got to shut off the news.
Speaker A:I've got to, you know, if you listen to this crap long enough, it really starts to affect you.
Speaker A:To where I'm at the point now where I don't even care about golf anymore.
Speaker A:Like I did three, three or four or five or sixers.
Speaker A:I don't care how much money people make.
Speaker A:I don't want to hear all the background crap.
Speaker A:I watched it to watch a beautiful shot, to watch basketball at its finest.
Speaker A:I watched to watch Bob Gibson throw a great fastball.
Speaker A:I watched it to watch Gail sayers take a 90 yard touchdown run.
Speaker A:I don't want to hear about your politics, your religion, your sexual orientation.
Speaker A:I don't want to hear about any of that garbage.
Speaker A:But that seems to draw the most viewers, the most followers.
Speaker A:And people believe that the more followers they have, the more important they are to themselves.
Speaker A:And it's just, you know, I try to get my information by using common sense.
Speaker B:We're going to take a break.
Speaker B:We're going to be back with Mike Whalen in just a couple of minutes.
Speaker B:Stay with us.
Speaker B:Hi, everybody, it's JT and this is a special version of Grilling at the Green.
Speaker B:Grilling at the Green is brought to you in part by Painted Hills Natural Beef.
Speaker B:Beef you can be proud to serve your family and friends.
Speaker B:That's Painted Hills Natural Beef.
Speaker B:Welcome back to Grilling at the Green.
Speaker B:We'd like to thank you all for listening and allowing us to spend an afternoon with you.
Speaker B:We're talking with Michael J.
Speaker B:When here if you on social media, if you know anything about Golf Channel in that Michael's a preeminent part of all that.
Speaker B:I think you and I are going to get into a bigger discussion.
Speaker B:So we're going to do that in the after hours segment.
Speaker B:But I wanted just because we don't have to take commercial breaks in that mike.
Speaker B:So we can just roll.
Speaker A:Yeah, that's my HBO days.
Speaker B:Yes, absolutely.
Speaker B:Give me a comparison.
Speaker B:We're kind of backtracking a little bit, so.
Speaker B:Forgive me on that, but the programming, when you started and you were you.
Speaker B:We talked about it in an earlier segment and then like Big Break came along and that type of stuff.
Speaker B:There's nothing like that now.
Speaker B:I've heard rumors that they thought Big Break was going to come back.
Speaker B:I haven't.
Speaker B:I don't.
Speaker B:Honestly, I don't watch the Golf Channel unless there's tournament coverage on.
Speaker B:And I, and I, I'm a big follower of the lpga too, so I, I watch it for that.
Speaker B:But as far as the commentaries and stuff, I, I don't, I don't watch that much of it that way.
Speaker B:But in the, in the programming aspect of it has.
Speaker B:Was there anything that they actually took of years and ran with it and are still going with it?
Speaker B:Maybe not exactly the same, but the premise being the same?
Speaker A:Well, their Golf Central show is still similar.
Speaker A:The highlights, the views of what's going on.
Speaker A:They've taken away a few of the things that I incorporated.
Speaker A: lked into the golf channel in: Speaker A:And we were going to change that.
Speaker A:We were going to be all inclusive.
Speaker A:We were going to be about golf, we were going to be about the lpga, we were going to be about the Futures Tour, we were going to be about the other minor league tours.
Speaker A:We were going to bring in people that had a kaleidoscopic look of representation.
Speaker A:We were going to hire women, we were going to hire people of color, which was a little shocking to some people.
Speaker A:In the beginning, when I hired Dwayne Ballen to host our Golf Channel Today show, I had come from a very liberal place, hbo, and I was going to bring that into the golf world.
Speaker A:I think it was important what we did.
Speaker A:I think when you turned on the television and watched the Golf Channel, there was a little bit of something for everybody.
Speaker A:And I was absolutely shocked.
Speaker A:The response and the love and the excitement that people had on Monday nights wondering who Peter Kessler's guest was going to be or which instructor was going to give you 90 minutes when he or she would have charged you $2,000 an hour.
Speaker A:I hired people that covered the LPGA specifically.
Speaker A:It wasn't a byproduct if we're gonna cover the lpga.
Speaker A:And there are a lot of stars and a lot of people in this league, and we're going to educate you, teach you, not just about what's going on in 95, but about the history as well.
Speaker A:And we're going to bring in people that know this sport damn well, and they're going to.
Speaker A:You know, it's going to be like you just finished the 18th hole and you're sitting in the grill and you're sitting around talking about what you did and about what the greatest people in the sport have done.
Speaker B:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker B:I don't know how you could put a show together and not be encompassing like that or a network together.
Speaker B:I understand the good old boy networks and that because I grew up in that as you did.
Speaker B:But to really reach out to people, you have to be all encompassing anymore.
Speaker A:It was challenging for me.
Speaker A:I mean, look, look, I.
Speaker A:It was, you know, here's.
Speaker A:Here's this New York guy walking in and in an Armani suit, kind of laying down what it's going to be like.
Speaker A:And it wasn't easy.
Speaker A:I mean, you know, it was.
Speaker A:I had a lot of fighting to do.
Speaker A:Hell, I put Peter Kessler, who had never been on TV.
Speaker A:I'm rolling that.
Speaker A:I'm rolling 70 million of Joe Gibbs's money by putting a guy who has never been on TV hosting your three main shows.
Speaker A:They thought I lost my mind.
Speaker A:It's my only employable skill, is to find talent.
Speaker B:Michael J.
Speaker B:Whelan, thank you, brother.
Speaker B:I appreciate you.
Speaker A:Anytime.
Speaker A:I'm always around here in the Sunshine State willing to do something where I don't have to put my robe on at 7pm There you go.
Speaker B:There you go.
Speaker B:We're going to be back next week with another radio edition of Grilling at the Green.
Speaker B:Until then, go out, have some fun, play some golf, and as we always say at the end of the show, be kind.
Speaker B:Take care, everybody.
Speaker A:Grilling at the Green is produced by JTSD Productions, LLC in association with Salem Media Group.
Speaker A:All rights reserve.
