Brian Windhorst: Tips and insight from an NBA insider

LOS ANGELES, CA- When it comes to sports media, ESPN is known worldwide, and its goal has been to serve sports fans wherever sports are watched, listened to, discussed, debated, read about or played. When it comes to NBA basketball, ESPN Senior Writer and NBA Insider Brian Windhorst is in the thick of the action, and has been since 2003 in his days at the Akron Beacon Journal covering the Cleveland Cavaliers. Windhorst even covered Lebron James when he was in high school at St. Vincent-St.Mary in Akron.

Windhorst graduated with a degree in journalism in 2000 from Kent State University and can now often be seen on SportsCenter or other ESPN platforms. He is typically breaking the top news of the day on a player or team or discussing the hottest topics of the league, giving its viewers the information they want to know.

For Windhorst, his job stretches across multiple platforms and entities despite them all being under the same company name. “My work changes from day-to-day, and at ESPN I do things on multiple platforms,” said Windhorst. “Sometimes I am on the radio at night, I contribute to ESPN the Magazine, ESPN.com, SportsCenter as well as The Jump and it is not unusual to work on three different platforms in four days.”

Windhorst is often working on multiple big projects all while keeping up with the day-to-day hustle of the NBA. “In the last six months, I have done a project on the finances of all 30 teams in the NBA, the supreme court case that will determine the future of gambling and last week I released a big thing I did on how the NBA is going to change its one and done rule,” Windhorst stated. “All during that time I have to cover the NBA and know things like how the Washington Wizards assist rate has changed since John Wall got hurt. In order to do all that, you have to do an immense amount of reading.”

In today’s form of media and the access that anyone in the public can have, being prepared with accurate information is extremely important. For someone like Windhorst, he is talking to millions of viewers on the nationally viewed platform, so displaying accurate, thorough and timely information is critical to his reputability as a journalist. “Preparation never really ends and is just part of my ecosystems because for me I am constantly trying to absorb information and I do an immense amount of reading per day to try and keep up with everything,” said Windhorst. “If you are going to be in the sports media business, you have to consume massive amounts of information.”

A big proponent to the job for Windhorst is his relationships with NBA professionals and his ability through those relationships to get the information he needs in order to be successful in his job. He has to have relationships with the internal media of every team, people in the NBA media markets across the country and elsewhere which can take a lot of time and effort. Windhorst says “That when it comes to relationship building it takes time and trust and some people are more gifted at it then others. Getting to know people on a personal level is also really important.”

Windhorst alluded to the fact that a couple NBA executives that he knows are having children and to be able to connect with people on a personal level shows that you are invested in people with things that are more than just basketball. “Typically, relationships start by doing business with someone and convincing them to connect with you for a reason,” said Windhorst. “You have to go low and slow to start and then meet a connection that has a connection who has another connection and develop yourself in that way.”

For today’s students and those in pursuit of a media career, Windhorst suggests that if you are really good at what you do, you have a lot better chance at making it somewhere then in the past. “In this era of media, there are a lot fewer barriers to becoming prominent or widely consumed then when I first started,” said Windhorst. “If you are really good at what you do and provide good content, then you have the ability to quickly rise to the top.”

The top of the industry to many would in fact mean being employed by ESPN and Windhorst had some words of wisdom for those upcoming who will have that privilege. “One of the things I tell people when they come to ESPN is that they think they have arrived but the reality is that thriving and surviving within ESPN is going to be the bigger challenge,” said Windhorst. “It is such a gigantic ecosystem and there is no one that hands you a map or itinerary on the first day.”

Despite the high-profile reputation and the multiple platforms it encompasses, the simplicity of ESPN is still to provide as many thrilling games as possible for its viewers. It has been doing so more and more recently, like in its project of expanding its ESPN3 coverage to provide even more content and Windhorst recognizes the dynamic. “The reason that the company is in existence is to put live sports on television,” said Windhorst. “No matter what any single show does or any insider says, they are very small in the overall scheme. The purpose of the network and the reason everyone has it in their house is because we have a ton of games.”

With the NBA playoffs soon approaching, it is evident that Windhorst will have his hands full. He will be working on getting you the information you cannot get otherwise and the information viewers thrive on knowing.

Find him soon on a television set near you!