Awful Announcing podcast: NBC Sports Chicago’s Jason Benetti talks the White Sox, Statcast, Bill Walton, and more

On this week’s edition of the Awful Announcing podcast, NBC Sports Chicago and ESPN broadcaster Jason Benetti joins host Ben Heisler to talk about growing up in Chicago, his dream job with the White Sox, Statcast, the Bill Walton Experience, and much more.

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Here’s the full rundown of Benetti and Heisler’s chat.

• 4:30 – Calling an Electrician Championship on ESPN 8 the Ocho this year
• 7:20 – When he learned that broadcasts could and should be fun
• 9:28 – Where did his love of sports first come from?
• 10:20 – How growing up in Chicago in the Michael Jordan era helped make sports part of the every day conversation
• 12:15 – The value of doing radio early in his life (high school)
• 13:20 – The impact of early feedback
• 14:10 – How he responded to the competitive atmosphere and nature at Syracuse
• 16:10 – Does he regret setting the tone for much of the competitive, aggressive environment
• 18:42 – What did he want to do when he left college
• 20:50 – On learning to do TV and deal with the challenges of it for the first time late in his career
• 25:00 – Did he ever want to be a radio talk show host
• 28:50 – On the possibility he could return home to the White Sox for his dream job
• 33:31 – Early broadcaster influences
• 39:10 – On the pace of baseball & college football and what can be done to fix it (if anything at all)
• 42:10 – Why do people and viewers get upset when changes happen in baseball?
• 45:51 – On being a part of the Statcast broadcast and going through trying to make it interesting and unique to traditional baseball viewers
• 49:45 – His “celebrity” weekend in Anaheim with Bill Walton, Mike Schur, and Mike O’Brien
• 55:00 – Pizza in a bag and fun times in New York
• 56:45 – His work and videos for the Cerebral Palsy Foundation

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