This year’s Super Bowl will look and feel very different than any other, given the pandemic. One feature of Super Bowl week persists.
Radio Row.
It’s still happening. As reported recently by Ben Fischer of Sports Business Journal, roughly 35 radio stations and podcasts will participate at the Tampa Convention Center. NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy told Fischer that’s roughly one third of the usual crowd.
Few expected that many, and it’s mainly Kansas City and Tampa radio stations that will attend. The fact that the Buccaneers made it to the Super Bowl makes it easier -- and cheaper -- for local operations to set up shop at Radio Row for the week.
Most of the programs that travel to the Super Bowl do so for one very important reason: They’re fishing where the fish are. In a normal week, an exponentially-increasing number of players and other potential guests make their way through the building, selling products or promoting movies or otherwise looking for maximum exposure with minimum movement. It creates, by Thursday and Friday, a crazy, frenetic cluster of humanity that can become difficult to physically navigate, with a dizzying array of recognizable faces milling about from table to table and from portable network set to portable network set.
This year, the fish aren’t there. The interviews will happen via phone and video link. So why go?
We’re not. We’ll be doing everything from our usual locations, and we’ll have a great collection of guests for our various shows. You’ll see posts all week with some of the best quotes or stories told by the guests, and you’ll see video clips connected to many of the blurbs we post.