Give the Microphone Something to Say

Every race weekend has hours of airtime that someone has to fill: the PA between heats, the live stream, the trackside camera, the podium. The people holding those microphones are looking for something to say. Most racers give them a list of sponsors. The ones who get talked about give them a story, and the sponsors get mentioned as part of it. Announcers and producers who spoke at my Sponsorship Summits and on Meet the Sponsors explained what they're listening for.

Be someone worth describing

Matt Holt races rock bouncers, calls races for the Southern Rock Racing Series and other off-road broadcasts, writes for a magazine and owns High Society Off-Road. When racers ask him how to get mentioned when they aren't winning, he asks them what kind of personality they are. "Are you the tough guy? Are you the good-looking guy? Are you the wild guy? The smart guy? The shy guy?"

What he doesn't need is another copy of everyone else. "If you look just like every other racer, if you talk like every other racer, if you do the same thing every other racer does, I've already interviewed them," he said. He passed along something a friend told him years ago: "Nobody talks about first place the next day... they talk about the wreck." The crash, the near miss and the all-night engine swap are what people remember. ▶ Watch Matt Holt explain this

Tell them, because they can't guess

Announcers can't use what they don't know. "We would love to talk about it, but there's no way I know unless you come tell me or I see it or I hear it," Holt said. His series gives its broadcasters a binder with a hero-card page on every driver, and he keeps a phone file of notes on each racer, down to how they take their sweet tea. Small details make for good airtime.

Timing matters, though. Holt has had people "literally walk between me and the person talking" to hand him a flyer. A better approach: "I'll be around the campfire in an hour hanging out, sitting in a lawn chair, drinking a Mountain Dew... Come over, hey, what's up, chit-chat for a minute." Tell him about the new car, what changed and why. And tell him about your life: "I want to hear if your mom is sick or if you just had a new baby." ▶ Watch Matt Holt on approaching announcers

Announcers learn the most in the pits

Scott Rehn spent 18 years announcing Monster Jam, called Championship Off-Road Racing and now announces King of the Hammers, where the entry list can run past 300. Driver profiles help, he said, but he really learns the field after the racing is done: "You walk the pits, you meet the guys, you meet the crews, you meet the wives and girlfriends." For him, "reading it is not as retainable as talking to you, the racer, the night before." ▶ Watch Scott Rehn explain this

Rehn sees getting racers on the mic as "50-50 responsibility," split between the announcer and the team. He tells drivers' meetings: "Guys, there's dead air between races. There's all kinds of time that I can only read the PA announcements so often." His offer is open: "Come on up to the booth, bring your sponsor along if you got one with you, and we'll put you both on camera." Bring your sponsor's or team's T-shirts, hats or koozies too, he said, so you can hand them to fans when you're done.

If the driver is busy getting ready, someone else on the team can handle it. Rehn has seen moms, wives and crew chiefs "grab them by the back belt loop and escort them up to the booth."

Give them a rivalry, not a résumé

Rehn was blunt about why a one-page bio doesn't do much once the show starts. His job between races is to entertain. "Is it really entertaining for you as a fan for me to read down, okay, he was born in Green Bay, Wisconsin... or is it more entertaining to you, you spun this guy out last week?" Ages, names and hometowns are hard to keep straight, he said, "but it is easy to remember who spun who out and what rivalry we might need to be watching for."

Remember who's watching, too. Many events now go out on a live stream, and Rehn put himself in a sponsor's shoes: he doesn't want to sit in the middle of the desert himself, but "I will be at home and I will be tuning in on the laptop." The person who signs your check may be watching that stream, so the booth interview counts even with an empty grandstand. ▶ Watch Scott Rehn on what to tell announcers

Answer the question on the podium

When you get to the podium, the microphone is yours, and that's where many racers lose the audience. David Pingree, four-time Supercross winner and host of the Whiskey Throttle Show, said it "drives me so bananas" when a rider gets a question and starts in with "well, you know, my Star Yamaha, Dunlop tires hooked up" and never actually answers. "You've lost everybody," he said. The fix: "If you're engaging and you're answering the question and you're talking about something that happened during the day, just inject your story into it, man, they'll give you more time."

Mark Carter, who has worked on the sponsor side at Simple Green, the agency side on Toyota's motorsports program, and at NBC before MAVTV, said producers keep track of who does this well. It "dictates who they go to interview a lot of times," he said. "They'll gravitate to the people that they're getting good content from." His pet peeve: "I just don't ever want to see a cue card." Some of the best podium moments he's seen didn't thank any sponsors at all. They showed what the result meant to the rider. That's no excuse to drop your partners, but name them inside a real answer and the producer will keep the camera on you longer, which is better for the logos on your chest. ▶ Watch Pingree and Carter on podium interviews

Rehn added one move for first-time winners: "If you won your first race and I know where your wife or your girlfriend or your mama is in the stands, I'm going to grab them and bring them with me, because there's nothing better than an emotional moment caught on camera." ▶ Watch Scott Rehn on podium interviews

Meet the TV crew before race day

You don't need a podium to get on a broadcast. Carter said racers and teams added value by helping with "an instructional segment," and he wished more of them would contact the network before an event: "Hey, I'm in the field, I'm racing, would love to come by and meet the TV crew." Learning how the production works, he said, shows you where you can add value to it. He also suggested looking at series sponsors that don't currently back any teams or riders and offering to do things for them without charging, which can earn camera time and some of their social reach. ▶ Watch Mark Carter on working with TV crews

Kindness gets noticed

Asked what would make him talk about a racer, Holt didn't say gifts. "I would say kindness for me personally. Every announcer is different." He described a crew at a King of the Hammers regional race that gave its own spare tire to a racer whose day was over so he could finish. Nobody told Holt about it. He watched it happen from the top of a hauler, and "I saw it and I absolutely wrote about it in a magazine." A cold drink or a hot dog for a broadcaster who has been on the mic for 14 hours works too. He may not mention you on air that day, he said, but he'll know your name the next time you race. ▶ Watch Matt Holt on kindness

The takeaway

• Know your angle: personality, rivalry, build story, family news. Tell the announcer before the show starts, not in the middle of a conversation.
• Walk over during downtime or the night before, and offer to come up to the booth with your sponsor and some merchandise.
• On the podium, answer the question first and fit your sponsors into the story.
• Contact the TV or stream crew before the event and offer help with segments.
• Be the racer who helps other people in the pits. The person on the microphone is watching.