In exchange for licensing “Inside the NBA” to ESPN, TNT Sports is broadcasting 13 Big 12 Conference football games this year. The media conglomerate has re-shaped its sports portfolio with new additions that also include select College Football Playoff games, All Elite Wrestling and March Madness.
TNT has tapped its second-year college football broadcast team of J.B. Long and Mike Golic Jr. for Big 12 action. Derek Futterman of Sports Media Watch caught up with the duo to discuss the presentation, covering the conference and more. This interview is edited for length and clarity.
Sports Media Watch: What was it like becoming acclimated with TNT Sports on college football broadcasts last season?
J.B. Long: I feel like the stars aligned for me in terms of looking for that next college football harbor in which to kind of dock my boat and going into last year not knowing what that would look like post Pac-12, especially when I have the privilege and the challenge to try to marry college football Saturdays to NFL Sundays. I always, almost always, need to be wherever the Rams are, home or away, by a certain time on Sunday, and that had been difficult at times in the Pac-12.
To split time last year with The CW — to still keep a toehold in what was the Pac-2 — but then also to have a package come available in the middle of a media rights agreement with the Mountain West, that doesn’t happen very often in our current landscape, but to see the stars align whereby I could get to the Rams, fulfill my obligation to The CW, which was a prior commitment, and still thread the needle with four games with Golic in the Mountain West and TNT to put a foundation down with that relationship, it was a once-in-a-lifetime professional fortune that I feel like led us to this point.
Mike Golic Jr.: It was really eye-opening in learning just why so many of TNT Sports’ properties have been really successful. The way they approached everything was first class, and it’s you can hear about it in the outside. We all have obviously watched “Inside the NBA,” and so many of our producers, directors, people behind the scenes were people that came over and have worked on “Inside” also, and the way they approached it, the way they wanted to set up folks on air to be successful and to remove any of the other things that might be distractions or take you away from just doing the best job making the content you’re there to do possible really shined through, and everyone was just really kind and good teammates.
Sports Media Watch: Moving from a schedule of four Mountain West Conference games to 13 matchups in the Big 12, what adjustments do you need to make to be set up for success?
J.B. Long: The beauty of where I feel like we’re stepping into is an ascendant conference with phenomenal leadership coming off a great year on the field, and then bringing back all the ingredients, including the head coaches and the quarterbacks in particular, to compete at the highest level of the sport at what I think [is] a critical juncture of college football in terms of what the next chapter is going to look like, specifically with College Football Playoff and championship access.
Sports Media Watch: How did you go about meeting for the first time and building chemistry?
J.B. Long: He and I both tell the story that we were at Rams training camp and were introduced by a mutual friend, Mina Kimes, and that was the first time that he and I had met face to face even though we had known of each other. I think he and I both knew that behind the scenes, we were working toward this goal of being part of the TNT college football re-entry, but it wasn’t until the next morning after meeting Mike that I became aware that we were going to be broadcast partners. And so I quickly had to reach out to him via Mina and say, ‘Hey, I hope you didn’t think that I was being anything less than transparent and honest when we had an hourlong chat yesterday, and neither one of us mentioned the fact that we’re going to be spending a lot more time together.’
Mike Golic Jr.: [J.B.] goes the same way about the game that I do. This is serious, but it can be fun. It’s such an easy season to the point where we got four games in and we really felt like we were getting a good sense for each other in the booth, and we were still chomping at the bit when it was over, so when we got the news that were were going to be able to come back and do it this year, I know we were both fired up and excited to see what we can do with a full season of chemistry working together.
Sports Media Watch: How would you describe your broadcast style?
J.B. Long: Hopefully clean, smooth, accurate. I pour my time and my energy and my heart into each and every broadcast that I do. I always said I treat each Saturday like a final exam, and I’ve been fortunate enough to get some A’s on some exams, and I’ve been unfortunate enough to get some lesser grades, but it’s never been for lack of effort or trying or intentionality.
And so my premise as a play-by-play broadcaster is to devote all my waking hours to getting to know a team as well as its hardcore fan base knows that team while having the humility and the respect to ultimately get to gameday and acknowledge the fact that I’ll never be able to have the depth and the passion of knowledge that they do rooting for one team and one team only week after week, month after month, year after year.
Sports Media Watch: As a former offensive guard at Notre Dame, what perspectives has competing as an athlete afforded you that other broadcasters do not have?
Mike Golic Jr.: I think my experience seeing that from the vantage point right in the middle of the line of scrimmage where it is the most difficult to see off the TV copy is really great. That’s where my eyes always go first. When I’m watching game tape, when I’m watching games on TV, my eyes work from the line of scrimmage and then go backwards, whereas the natural tendency with football is to watch the ball and watch where that goes, and that can tell you plenty, but I think that added layer of what goes on in the areas that most people kind of divert their eyes from as soon as the ball leaves the center’s hands is one where I can bring some value.
Sports Media Watch: How will the additions of Coy Wire and Allie LaForce help enhance the live game broadcasts?
Mike Golic Jr.: Coy’s a guy that played in college and the NFL and has a unique perspective now having done stuff digitally for Bleacher Report and obviously has worked with CNN, so he’s going to be a fascinating vantage point of having a guy with that playing experience down on the sidelines with us here as an extra set of eyes in his games.
J.B. Long: I briefly had a chance to work adjacent to Allie last year in Las Vegas at the Players Era Festival, the NIL-driven basketball tournament that TNT covered last year, last Thanksgiving week, and she could not have been more impressive, and everything that I’ve always admired and respected about her as a broadcaster really shined through sitting across a dinner table from her and with our team. She’s just authentic and genuine and hard working and super sharp and a great storyteller.
Sports Media Watch: Throughout the offseason, what has your preparation process been like for Big 12 football?
Mike Golic Jr.: A lot of reading, watching and listening the way I always do. It’s become increasingly more difficult because of all the roster turnover. You’re constantly looking up one roster and seeing names of guys that you may have watched last year, but I do think that creates a little bit of fun. It’s sort of like in our NFL counterpart where, ‘Hey, you’ve got free agency, you’ve got trades that go on there, and you’ve got guys that you know something about that are all of a sudden going to be transported into a different environment and context, and to try and figure [it] out.
Sports Media Watch: The SEC recently announced that it will be moving to a nine-game schedule beginning in the 2026 season, aligning with the Big 10 and Big 12 conferences. What is the importance of having uniformity to effectuate a more equitable selection process for the College Football Playoff?
Mike Golic Jr.: I covered the four-team playoff for a decade like everybody else – I was doing rankings shows – and you get to late-October, November and when these final rankings are starting to come out, and it had been so whittled down to the few teams that were actually going to be capable, record wise and accomplishment wise, of getting into those four spots. And now with 12, I think it just keeps so many more fan bases engaged. It forces us as a general sports media to cover more of these teams, talk more about the chances and who might be representing from each of these spots, and so I think all of that just continues to bolster and drive interest into college football’s regular season
Sports Media Watch: What are your thoughts on the evolution of the TNT Sports portfolio amid other alterations to the media landscape?
J.B. Long: TNT is first rate in every sense of the expression, and I really feel that in working with them for a year-plus now, and I think the way that they treat their people — producers, directors, audio technicians, camera operators and broadcasters alike — allows us to be at our best. If I ever fall short of the mark, I can promise you it’s not going to be because of anything that came from TNT. It’s going to be solely on my shoulders.
Mike Golic Jr.: It’s amazing, and again, I remember Bomani Jones said, ‘You win with quality.’ No matter what you’re doing, no matter what medium, if you bring quality to the table, people are going to want to stick around and watch, and that’s exactly what TNT has done. Listen, you get the kind of final that you got at Roland Garros and everyone’s going to be smiling, but they met the moment.
Sports Media Watch: What will you consider to be successful for this season?
J.B. Long: If someone at UCF or someone at Kansas State sees our crew in September, they may feel one way, and by the time they get to know us over the course of a 13-game season, studio and field equally, are they going to be excited about the fact that the network assignments worked out such that their Week 10 matchup is on TNT? I think that’s an attainable goal, I think it’s a realistic goal, and I think it’s a great way to measure success because I believe that’s going to happen. When you talk about my time with Pac-12 Network, the frustration there was not the caliber of broadcast or delivery. It was availability, it was access, it was, ‘Can I find it?,’ Well, TNT has that solved for. Now it’s upon us, I think, to deliver the quality that will lead Big 12 audiences to be glad to see their football product on TNT.
