Radio Gold
Former Phoenix sports talker launched popular Web site
By Ron Matejko
MVP Magazine

With more than 400 sports radio stations in the United Stations and many local programs on each of those stations, a significant number of live interviews are being conducted each day.

The problem is, unless you are listening to the station at the time of the interview or you surf from station Web site to station Web site with the hope of finding podcasts or archived audio files, the interviews are gone once they are done.

Former XTRA-910 talk show host Jimmy Shapiro not only noticed this, he did something about it and launched the popular sports Web site SportsRadioInterviews.com in October 2008. Since then, Shapiro has built the site into the premier destination for those who want one location to listen to archived sports interviews from around the country.

“I always thought sports radio was an under-appreciated medium that never got due credit for what it accomplished,” Shapiro said. “Many people think it is a place for blowhards who never played sports to give opinions, when in reality there are so many good interviews that happen on sports radio that go to pasture. If you didn’t hear about it, it’s like it didn’t happen.”

Shapiro, who operates his sports PR company out of Seattle, devotes a few hours a day to update the site with a fresh batch of interviews. On one recent day, his posts consisted of interviews from outspoken former NFLers Kyle Turley and Shannon Sharpe, another from NFL legend Fran Tarkenton and another from “Jersey Shore” star Snookie.

In the past, Shapiro did all the leg work to track down interviews to post on the site. Now, he gets a significant number of his interviews from stations who email him hoping to get additional exposure.

“Stations like to be on the site and see their stuff go national,” Shapiro said.

Files are categorized by recent posts, by month, by sport and by team. There is also a search tool in case you just want to punch in a name and see if there are any archived interviews from that person.

SportsRadioInterviews.com has garnered a strong following with more than 50,000 unique visitors a month. The Web site has also been sourced in numerous national media outlets including the New York Times, ESPN, Yahoo and Sporting News, which syndicates his content.

You can follow Shapiro on Twitter @JimmyShapSRI.