Sportscaster advises teen broadcasters

As San Joaquin Valley’s local sports guy for the past 15 years, Nick “The PagMeter” Papagni already has an impressive following in the high school sports world through his website as well as his weekly sports show.

Papagni works on 940 ESPN’s weekly radio show, The Rise, in addition to writing on The PagMeter website which records over 200,000 hits a week. On the show, Papagni discusses the week’s news alongside his partner, Matt Johnson. He began working for ESPN in 2003.

Local Fresno product, Papagni started his media career as the Buchanan Bears baseball PA announcer. After working this job for a couple years, Papagni got a call from the Fresno Grizzlies to become their PA announcer for the year. Papagni stepped into this role and thrived in it.

By the end of the season, ESPN called him to become their new Valley sports specialist in 2003. His ties to Fresno made him the obvious choice to fill this role. Papagni accepted the job and soon realized that ESPN offered no formal training for the new hires.

“There was no training back then. They just threw me into the fire,” Papagni said. “It was just like this. Set up, get the microphone and go.”

Each week, on The PagMeter, Papagni makes his predictions for that weeks high school match ups. Papagni’s preparation remains as his most important asset for his website as well as his radio show. Each week, Papagni looks at the match ups to find a favorable one, as well as talking with different coaches about their input on the games. 

In the following podcast, Kyle Clem discusses a career in broadcasting with Nick Papagni.

For the last 10 years, he has gotten 86% of these predictions correct. This consistent preparation allows Papagni to weekly go onto his show ready and sounding knowledgeable on all of his topics. These skills that Papagni uses helps make his show one of the most popular in the Valley.

In addition to these predictions, Papagni and his student writers discuss who they believe play like the top schools in the Valley. These rankings provide readers with a deeper knowledge of which teams play better than others.

During Papagni’s childhood, he already knew what he wanted to do with his life. He sat in the stands at baseball games and announced the games to himself.

“I’d sit in the stands and just kind of practice and people probably thought I was crazy,” Papagni said; “but I would announce the games by myself in the corner and just start practicing.”

Papagni suggests that people who want to get into sports journalism need to tape themselves and learn how to improve.

“Tape yourself,” Papagni said. “You can learn and go, ‘wow, I did pretty good now, oh, I need to change that.’” 

While Papagni spends two hours a night working on his radio show and The PagMeter, he still works a daytime job. He works in the agriculture industry Monday through Friday. This experience allows Papagni to connect with his audience deeper because he works a typical job just like his audience.

Papagni’s weekly show broadcasts live every Thursday from noon – 2 p.m. at Fashion Furniture in Fresno’s Riverpark Shopping Center.

For more articles, read BREAKING: Students, staff anticipate upcoming 34th annual homecoming week and BREAKING: Eagle Fest features carnival activities, fundraising for campus.

This author can be reached via Twitter: @KyleClem5 and via e-mail: [email protected].

Papagni can be reached at: [email protected].