A near seven-foot offensive tackle, a speedy shortstop and a point guard with the ability to see everything walk into a room. This might sound like the start of a joke, but this is the day-to-day activity for a sports broadcaster.

In a business where hardly anything stays the same, you must be able to stay on your toes and dedicate your time to the events that your audience wants to see and the hottest stories in your area of coverage.

Joe Danneman has been one of the leading sports anchors at WXIX FOX19 in Cincinnati since 2011. He knows all about the hardships it takes to reach this peak of the industry.

“Of course you question the hours. The hours are difficult. It’s not just the hours, it’s the night shifts, it’s the weekends, it’s the holidays,” Danneman said. “Again, very competitive business. A lot of people want to do it. Those are the kind of ways that you weed out who wants it bad enough.”

Danneman was attending Syracuse University when he got his first taste of this vast yet strugglesome industry. 

“I was walking to the dome for the [football] game when a guy popped his head out of the big production truck for ESPN and said, ‘Hey, are any of you guys New House students,’” Danneman said. “I said, ‘Yeah, I am.’ He goes, ‘How would you like to make 50 bucks and watch the game from the sideline?’ So he gave me an ESPN smock, he gave me a parabolic mic and there I was on the field for number two Tennessee versus number seven Syracuse.”

Working your way into the business is not always about the glitz and glamor that it may make itself out to be. There are hardly any opportunities where you can just waltz into a job as one of the most important faces in sports media, no matter what level you try.

Danneman talked about a very unique experience he had coming out of college in which he found his first internship opportunity at a station in St. Louis that was going to find static on their channel before too long.

“They were going to stop doing news within the calendar year, and they were laying people off left and right,” Danneman said. “By the time I got there, they looked at me as free labor, and basically had me working every day in a sports department that only had two people, and I did everything. I shot stuff, I did interviews, I edited. It was the greatest internship you could ever have because of the circumstance. I got to cover the greatest show on turf, Rams at training camp, I got to do Olympic trials, I got to do Mark McGuire the year after he broke the home run record; It was an unbelievable experience.”

Danneman has seen more issues arise since he began working in this industry, including issues that came outside of the newsroom. He knew this job would find its way into splitting up important events at home.

“I can’t tell you how many games of my children I’ve missed and how many Halloweens I haven’t been there for,” Danneman said. “I’m there on Christmas morning, I’m able to get out for Thanksgiving dinner and so you always find a way, but family parties, big moments, surprise parties, yeah, you miss those things. And that’s just kind of part of the sacrifice you make.”

One of the more compelling things that Danneman talked about was the inability he felt to take time away from his career for anything.

“There was a long time where I told myself, if I take one day off, someone’s going to come here, take my job, and I’ll never get it back,” Danneman said. “I feel comfortable enough now in my career, in my standing here, that, you know, you get time off for a reason, and you need to use it.”

Growth was the chronological theme that was described by each anchor. Whether it was finding yourself in an area where you worked endless hours or stepping up by entering new market sizes, each anchor’s experience saw some form of growth.

Jeremy Rauch is the second part of the dynamic duo that is the sports anchors of FOX19. Rauch has been at FOX19 for over 10 years, but he never fails to remember the roots of his career and the markets he stamped his name in.

“I think my first experience actually working in the field would have been between my junior and senior year of college. I interned at 10 TV in Columbus, CBS,” Rauch said. “I hadn’t recorded any stand-ups or even experienced what that looked like, or what it should be, really all that much. Yet I remember the photographer I was working with said, ‘Tiger [Woods] just held out. You got to shoot a stand-up.’ So he hits record and just tells me to go. And I don’t even know what to say or what to do here, but it was my first experience of staring into a camera and trying to figure out what to say with Tiger Woods walking up on the green right behind me, so I was nervous out of my mind.”

After Rauch had his fair share of rookie experiences in college, he prepared himself for the real world and the job opportunities he hoped to pursue at that time.

“[My] first full-time job reporting would have been in Dalton, Georgia,” Rauch said. “I had a really hard time getting a job initially. I had a friend that worked at this cable TV station in North Georgia, and I didn’t really care where I went or how much I got paid. That station was so hilarious. They were really low-budget, and just all kinds of crazy things. I just wanted to get in and get going out of college. So I ended up landing there for about nine months.”

He talked about the strain that working “55 to 60 hours a week” can have on a family. Despite the hardship it put him in, he mentioned that “being present” is the key.

“Don’t let [work] drive you away from being present and involved at home, present with your kids, present with your wife, whatever that is as a family man,” Rauch said. “Find little windows where you can surprise them, or be home or where you can kind of make those special trips to a sporting event even though your job is demanding.”

A very different story came from NKU and  Northerner alumni Sierra Newton. Newton has spent the last three years working in the sports department at WLEX-TV, where she has worked her way up to a job that she finds a lot of joy in.

Newton spent her time at The Northerner as the Sports Editor and said that this is where she got her first experiences in the sports media world, as an insider. She was ready to propel herself to the next level after finding lots of success from the start, but a worldwide pandemic stopped her mid-sprint.

“It was kind of hard the first few years, because when I graduated, it was spring 2020, so the peak of COVID,” Newton said. “Sometimes I’m like, ‘Man, it might have been easier to take a different route,’ but at the same time, I don’t think I would enjoy anything as much as I’m enjoying doing what I’m doing now. You have your days, but the joy I get out of it outweighs the conflict of schedule.”

Newton is originally from Frankfort, KY, so the family dynamic for her is slightly different. She does not have her own kids to worry about, but time with her parents is something that she catches herself needing at times to help “reset” her head space.

“Sometimes weeks without physically going back to Frankfort, even though it’s 40 minutes away, I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, if I actually go somewhere else, I really won’t be able to see them for months at a time,’” Newton said. “I’m not a very needy person in general when it comes to being around my family, but I know every few weeks or so, I need to go home and reset.”

Newton has been able to develop her own home away from home, as she finds comfort in the same feelings that her co-workers convey about the limited time they have to visit with their families.

“I have plenty of friends at the news station in sports, and not in sports as well, that talk about the stuff that they go through sometimes and so we make little families in the newsroom,” Newton said. “I feel like that definitely helps. So even if you feel like at some point that you miss your family, you know you can make your own little family within a newsroom.”

One of the best ways that Newton’s family stays in connection is through her work. On X, she posts about the many different topics she covers each day, and her family always makes sure to show their support and even give their own tips from time to time.

“Sometimes I can tell that they wish they could spend more time with me, but they’re always checking my Facebook and my Twitter,” Newton said. “They’ll text me and they’ll be like, ‘I saw your story today. I really liked it.’ Or they’ll be like, ‘You sound a lot better when you take a deep breath. Remember to do that.’ Even though I’m not seeing them every single day. I know that they’re watching and I know that they’re excited and appreciate all the work that I’ve put into this point. I’m very blessed to have a really supportive family.”

The rise of social media in a sports media member’s job was a large staple of conversation, as all three anchors preached the importance of its role and how it has changed the abilities they have.

“I mean, now if a breaking news story happens at noon, it’s breaking at noon on whatever social media platform you got,” Danneman said. “I had no idea [X] would become this big of a resource for news folks to use, especially for breaking news. You know, now you think about it, it’s a great place for that, and how much our society probably needed a place for that, for instantaneous news sharing.”

Danneman also talked about the game on Jan. 2, 2023, between the Cincinnati Bengals and the Buffalo Bills. This game is known for the tragic situation in which Damar Hamlin collapsed on the field due to cardiac arrest. 

Danneman was on the sideline for that game and remembers the chaos that ensued both on and off the field in covering that situation. He recalled the security he had to push through to get more information and the places he had to go to be the newsbreaker for this moment that became more than just a football event.

Danneman amassed followers that night due to the coverage he provided to fans all over who were beyond confused about what had happened. However, he has upheld his “brand” and character, whether it was on the largest news networks in the world or only being covered in Cincinnati.

“A lot of people in Cincinnati recognized me from Twitter,” Danneman said. “A lot of people, especially young people who aren’t traditional news watchers, would understand my influence of whatever story I was doing or whatever game I was covering, because of my backing on Twitter, and now that I have a bigger audience and a big number next to my name it’s been big for my brand.”

While Rauch did not make it to that huge Bengals moment, he was at one of the biggest off-field moments of the Bengals’ 2021 season. He was at Arrowhead Stadium when the team arrived to take on the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC Championship.

“I remember without a doubt covering the Bengals’ arrival in the AFC Championship game in Kansas City,” Rauch said. “We got a video of them arriving and I remember screenshotting [Joe Burrow’s] outfit and putting it on Twitter. At that time, Joe Burrow’s fashion was also a part of his rise as a quarterback in the NFL, and the internet lost its mind. I remember everyone on every site everywhere was grabbing it and reposting it with or without credit. But, you know, it became a meme, and that was one of the moments I can remember being like, ‘Wow, you cover a player who is a superstar that doesn’t just have an impact in Cincinnati, but everyone wants to write a story on.’”

While Newton has not had her iconic moment (yet) on social media, she talked about how the notoriety from Kentucky athletes creates a sense of comfort when they are preparing for an interview.

“When I decide to do stories on different student-athletes, they’re like, ‘Oh, I’ve seen you on Twitter,’” Newton said. “If it’s not my personal work Twitter, then it’s like, ‘Oh, I’ve seen the BBN Tonight Twitter account. Yeah, you guys are always liking, tweeting and stuff.’”

Whether it was getting into the field because of knowing you were not going to be an athlete in sports, or finding your way into it because of an announcer you loved, everyone has their individual paths to reaching this height of excitement and thrill that so many want to do. 

However, even with all this emotion, it is worth noting that it is no walk in the park to reach this horizon. You must learn how to work the camera before you can ever step in front of it.