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A Familiar Post-Game Face. Brad Steinke has the final word on Suns and Diamondbacks games for FSN Arizona. But his path to your living room has been long and interesting. For most professional people, reaching a high level of success in the industry you’re in isn’t something that happens overnight; it’s the product of a metaphorical journey that often spans the length an entire career. For Fox Sports Net anchor Brad Steinke — who gets ample air time as host of the Phoenix Suns’ live post-game shows — something that happened over the course of 11 overnights in a cross-country journey over two decades ago played a big part of what he’s become today. |
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Barely a year into his first professional broadcasting gig, Brad and his colleagues at a Tucson news station documented a married couple as they pedaled across America, tandem-bicycle style, in an attempt to break their own record. Riding shotgun in minivans and RVs, Brad shouldered a bevy of responsibilities, including chef (he handed the couple granola bars when they were hungry), and comedian (at the halfway point Brad delivered an impromptu stand-up bit while hanging out the side of the minivan, a moment he still vividly recalls as "such a cool feeling"). He shone spotlights at 4 a.m., and darted miles ahead to a TV station in Nowhere, New Mexico, to score replacement parts for some busted equipment. All in addition to actually reporting on the story. And when it was all said and done, at the ripe young age of 25 years, Brad had won himself a local Emmy. "When we won that award, it was so satisfying," Brad told POST. "I mean, not only are you in this great business, but people think you’re doing it well." As an encore, Brad has proceeded to grab five more Emmys, including three of the last four in the category of best sports talent in the Rocky Mountain Southwest Region for his work with FSN Arizona, which includes the aforementioned Suns post-game show, the Diamondbacks’ post-game show, the Suns’ and Diamondbacks’ Insider Shows, and "In My Own Words," an interview format where Brad goes one-on-one with the Valley’s biggest sports personalities. These days, there are seemingly more FSNs dotted around the country than Starbucks. FSN Bay Area, FSN Midwest, FSN Florida, Indiana, Detroit. Heck, there might be an FSN Antarctica. And the fact that they’re all locally stationed in the cities in which the teams play came about in large part because of Steinke. Here’s how. Brad used to handle all his FSN Arizona (formerly the Arizona Sports Report) requirements from a studio in Atlanta, where the geographical separation and lack of live broadcasts basically eliminated any hopes of a hometown connection with viewers. "It was very odd," says Steinke. "You never got the passion of the fans or the interaction with the players." The future was clear. Go West, young man! Which is exactly what management allowed him to do. No longer was the broadcast going to be a detached dynamic; FSN Arizona was actually going to be in Arizona. Shows would be live (no prompters or scripts) and names would become faces, which all sparked a major shift in the network’s approach. "We have long-term contracts with these teams, and I think they (FSN) realized that to be effective, we needed to team up with the organizations," Steinke said. "Start with the pre-game, then have the game, and then wrap it up with the post-game show. We were kind of the guinea pig for other networks. We didn’t have a road map. Everyone around the country was watching to see how we did it." And ever since then, Brad’s been making transitions smooth enough to make Steve Nash proud. He and Tom Chambers, whom Brad has known for over 20 years, mesh seamlessly on the air. Feeding off the energy of the fans behind them, Brad’s years of experience, and both of their respective basketball pedigrees (we all know Tom Chambers enjoyed a terrific NBA career, while Brad attended Southern Utah University on a basketball scholarship and is the son of a coach), the duo delivers show after show with the efficiency of a Suns fast break. Granted, it’s a lot easier doing shows when the team usually wins and fans are in a great mood and not throwing things, but to pull it off with great precision on a consistent basis is really commendable. Brad says his favorite part of the job is that "you never know what’s going to happen" — like when two women started kissing in the background of a live broadcast! Covering the arrival of Shaq in February was a thrill for Brad, and he went so far as to welcome the Big Fella to town with a new nickname, The Big Igniter — we’ll see if it sticks. It’s that kind of involvement, with both the team and the fans, that keeps Steinke on his toes and loving what he does. "We are so fortunate to cover this Suns team with such great personalities, and the exciting style of play," says Steinke, who says the energy of the fans at the post-game show is "amazing." "I’ve been doing this for 25 years and I’m still as excited driving to work as I was the day I started." And it was way back when he started that Brad received some sage advice from one of the best in the broadcasting biz, CBS’s Jim Nantz. "For a while in this business, everyone was trying to be the outrageous, look-at-me type," says Steinke. "He just told me to be myself." And by being himself, Brad, who in his spare time runs marathons and is a four-handicap on the golf course, has gone from a work-for-peanuts job in Abilene, Texas, to inside the plasma and high-def TV sets of sports fans around Arizona. In between were stops at KSL TV in Salt Lake City, ABC 15 in Phoenix, and in Miami, where he worked with ESPN’s Mark Jones at the Marlins’ and Miami Heat flagship station. And besides the time he accidentally referred to the Minnesota Vikings’ defense (commonly known as the Purple People Eaters) as the "Purple Peter Eaters," Brad, amazingly, can’t recall any other major on-air blunders. "I’ve been pretty fortunate," Brad says. "Knock on wood." |
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