Media Movers: N.C. sports reporting star Joe Giglio

If you pay attention to college sports, chances are you’ve come across Joe Giglio.

He started writing and talking about the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC)  while at N.C. State University in the mid-to-late 1990s. That college work helped him land a plum job at the (Raleigh) News & Observer, where he spent nearly a quarter-century giving up nights and weekends to strengthen and showcase his sports expertise. He left the newspaper to co-host a radio show with Joe Ovies, another local sports legend.

When that show abruptly ended earlier this year, the duo took it upon themselves. (Anyone doubting their idea was surely placated on June 7 when they scored indeed: a big interview with North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper about sports-related topics.)

Sports is big business and so is sports journalism, so it’s surprising that Joe is the first sports journalist Media Movers has featured. I was excited to chat with him about how soccer changed his life, proving he belonged in journalism. He also discussed how his new business partnered with his old employer.

Dawn: How did you discover sports journalism?

Joe Giglio: I didn’t realize this until after I got into the newspaper business but my interest in sportswriting started when I first learned how to read. When I was a kid in New Jersey, I used to read the local paper [The Record in Bergen] every day. After big games, my dad would get some of the New York tabloids — the Post, the Daily News — so I could see what was being written about the games.

We also had subscriptions to Sports Illustrated and The Sporting News, which I read religiously growing up.

Dawn: You’ve found a niche covering the ACC. How did that come about?

Joe: We had more snow my junior year in high school in Ringwood, N.J., than Nome, Alaska. So I decided I was going to college somewhere warmer. My parents had friends near Maryland, Georgia and N.C. State. We visited those schools in the summer of 1992.

The first week of my senior year of high school, I was accepted at N.C. State. I quickly realized that meant I wouldn’t have to do much work my senior year and decided to go there.

My sophomore year at State, I started writing for the school newspaper. The next year, I started working at the campus radio station. State wasn’t good at either football or men’s basketball — but the ACC was. My dad coached high school football for 25 years, so that was the sport I knew the most about. Basketball was the sport I played the most, so those were the two I understood in a way that translated to how I was able to cover those sports.

By the middle of my junior year, I got a part-time job at The News & Observer slinging agate [Editor’s note: Agate is the very small type you see in sports box scores.] That started me on a 24-year career at the paper where I worked my way up through the sports department.

Dawn:  You recently started a new company, making you the latest entrepreneur we’ve profiled. How did this new company come about?

Joe: As former Carolina Hurricanes goalie Arturs Irbe once said: “Sometimes you have to throw the puppy in the ocean and see if it can swim.”

Well, Joe Ovies and I got thrown in the ocean on April 26 after the media company we were working for decided they couldn’t afford us anymore. So we decided to try to take the best parts of what we were doing for radio, television, podcasts and YouTube, and do them on our own.

So on May 3, we launched the Ovies + Giglio podcast — and five days later we had our first sponsor.

Dawn: What is your business model?

Joe: We are old school: We sell ads. We have a large enough following on our podcast platform and YouTube to include inserted ads, but we are using native ads (or as I like to put it, the “Howard Stern/Snapple” model) with companies who have decided to partner with us and sponsor our content.

We have nine sponsors, which includes some people we knew from our previous venture, but also includes new companies who believe in us, which I got to say is both humbling and rewarding.

Dawn: Let’s go back a bit. You were very involved with your college newspaper. How did that start?

Joe: I missed sports. I played football, basketball and baseball growing up. I wanted to figure out a way to have a career in sports but I was not talented enough to play them at the professional level. So I figured I could write about them.

The funny thing is the first sport I had to write about was soccer. I never played soccer growing up. I understood the premise but had no concept of the nuance or strategy to the game. That turned out to be the best thing that could happen to my career, though, because I met George Tarantini. Coach was an unbelievable mentor. Without him, I never would have had a chance to make it in this business.

Dawn: What skills did you learn there that you still use today?

Joe: I cringe when I look back at what I wrote in school but those reps are how you get better. Writing has never really been my strength, though: asking questions is. It was in those press conferences, covering the giants of the ACC — Dean Smith, Mike Krzyzewski, Bobby Bowden — and I got a real chance to figure out how to ask the right questions. Sometimes they’re hard ones and sometimes you’re trying to get a lighter reaction.

Dawn:  My guess is that breaking into sports reporting is competitive. Is that the case?

Joe: Sports journalism has changed so much in the past 30 years. If you took a snapshot from 1965 and 1995, you’d at least recognize the two eras. But 1995 and 2023? [Laughs.]

One thing remains true: Just as there is for lawyers, doctors, stockbrokers, certain schools produce the most talent. UNC, Syracuse, Northwestern, Missouri are all known for their J-schools. N.C. State doesn’t have one. That was actually one thing that always motivated me when I first started. I always wanted to prove that I belonged, even without the pedigree or connections.

Dawn:  It also seems like it would be tough to stand out as an unbiased sports expert and authority when people are so passionate about particular teams. How do you handle that?

Joe: This is where the business has changed the most. Bill Simmons really started the sea change in fan journalism in the late 1990s. He loves Boston. He never made any bones about that before and after he got to ESPN. He has also spawned a million copycats, which in turn has made the “unbiased sports expert” extinct.

That in turn has led fans to seek out coverage that aligns with what they want to read/hear, which is not always an honest evaluation of their teams. That’s OK because it does leave a void for people like me who are willing to point out the good and the bad and not just tell you what you want to hear.

I try to do two things: Be as honest as possible — while also understanding that I would never say (or write) anything about a coach/player/AD/owner/commissioner that I wouldn’t say to their face. You’d be surprised how far that little test will get you and how many times it might save you from yourself.

Dawn: What advice did mentors provide to you over the years that helped you shine?

Joe: Caulton Tudor, legendary columnist for the Raleigh Times and N&O, once told me: “You can’t please all the people all the time, so don’t even try.”

Of course, “Toot” was so good, he pleased far more people with his writing than he angered, but he understood that there would be a reaction.

It’s against our human nature to be disliked or to not react when our work is criticized. Social media has made it very easy for people to find you and call you all kinds of names and even threaten your life. At 48, I can process the vitriol better than at any other stage in my life. But it still stings when people insult you or especially your family.

There’s also a flip side to it on social media. The support our audience showed for us when we started our new podcast company was amazing and truly is what got me through this career transition.

Dawn:  What advice would you give to someone looking to break into the industry today?

Joe: Rule No. 1: Show up. Nothing beats boots on the ground. You will always learn more and get better quotes, facts, stories and sources when you show up.

Rule No. 2: It’s not easy. It will never be easy, even after 27 years in the business. The business is going to change and keep changing and you have to figure out a way to change with it.

Rule No. 3: It’s a people business. Who you know matters. It just does. But if you treat people the right way, I believe you will be treated the right way in return.

Dawn:  You left print journalism for a radio job. How did you find the transition?

Joe: Talking for three hours a day for five days a week is difficult. If you don’t think so, try it. It’s not digging ditches or curing cancer but it’s a lot harder than you think until you actually try it. I was fortunate to work every day with a true radio pro in Joe Ovies and to learn from our former colleague Adam Gold.

Doing it at the start of the pandemic — there were no sports during the first five months of my job — and through the heart of it was a massive challenge. I learned from it, though, and would like to think what we’re doing now is a direct result of the lessons we learned in 2020 and ’21.

Dawn:  I noticed that your podcast is available on the website of the News & Observer, your previous employer. How did that come about?

Joe: Obviously, I still have a good relationship with the N&O — my wife Jessaca Giglio is an editor there — but we are all in the content business now: print, digital, whatever the platform. It makes sense to partner with a legacy media company that has a large audience. In turn, we create content that can help generate traffic for them. We have a similar deal with The Pilot in Southern Pines, N.C.

Dawn:  What do you do for fun?

Joe: Play golf. Make spreadsheets. Make spreadsheets about golf. It’s all very complicated or simple, depending on how you look at it.

Dawn: Finally, do you play any sports?

Joe: Gave up pickup hoops at 45. I don’t need to tear an ACL. I do play a lot of golf and will for as long as my back will hold up.

Dawn Wotapka is a former Wall Street Journal reporter who loves to read and write. She lives in Atlanta with her husband and two children. She is a slow runner and an avid Peloton user.  Be sure to connect with Dawn on LinkedIn.