Sports Business Radio Profiled in The Oregonian

This sports show talks to 'people who call the shots'

Brian Berger puts the business of athletics in the spotlight of his radio program

Monday, June 12, 2006

HELEN JUNG

The Oregonian

One minute, Brian Berger is joking with his radio show contributor NathanRoach and executive producer Bobby Corser.

Then, at Corser's signal, he turns his attention to the microphone in front of him. Berger starts rattling off ratings statistics and sports news developments, interspersed with commentary. His voice rises several decibels, as he starts waving his hands and talking with a punchy, energetic vibe.

He ends his introductory segment with an enthusiastic "You're listening to SPORTS BUSINESS RADIO."

These days, Sports Business Radio is being heard.

Berger hosts an hourlong show devoted to sports business topics. It can be seen on local cable TV and heard on radio stations and satellite radio across the country through a syndication deal with Sports Byline USA Broadcast Network. The program, taped at KXL studios in Portland, also can be downloaded as a podcast -- and has 25,000 subscribers, he said.

The show is a sideline to his main business -- running the public relations firm he started in 1998 after leaving a job with the Trail Blazers. It also doesn't pay his family's bills.

It takes about 20 hours a week, from lining up guests, conducting interviews, researching facts and taping segments. But it's his passion and a way to reconnect with his radio background. At Loyola Marymount University, he and college buddy Keith Forman called basketball games over the college station.

The show also allows him to feed his interest in sports while giving listeners material he and Forman thought was missing. Forman has left the show to focus on his full-time job.

"We got tired of listening to all the sports talk shows. It was the same old same old, every day," Berger said. "We talk to the people who call the shots."

And he's landed many of them, including recently interviewing his own "holy grail" of a guest -- Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban -- and getting him to discuss his days as a disco dancing instructor.

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