Sports Media With Richard Deitsch

Episode 146 of the Sports Media Podcast features two guests. First up is Jemele Hill, a contributing writer for The Atlantic, the host of the “Jemele Hill is Unbothered,” podcast for Spotify, and a creative adviser for Meadowlark Media. She is followed by Tom Hannifan, better known by the announcing name Tom Phillips. He spent nine years with the WWE and during his WWE career he served as the play-by-play commentator on Raw, NXT, SmackDown, 205 Live, and NXT UK. He was recently let go by WWE and is now looking for traditional sports broadcasting opportunities. In this podcast Hill discusses Naomi Osaka’s withdrawal from the French Open; the failure to find a creative solution by French Open organizers; the debate over the value of the post-game/post-match presser; the importance of the press conference for smaller media outlets; the performative aspects and uncomfortable nature of sports press conferences; whether this means something larger for the sports media; a very bad week of fans interacting with athle