Out of a Gig, Paul Kuharsky Becomes a Brand

Paul Kuharsky has spent the past two decades covering the Titans for The Tennessean and ESPN. And though he spends a few hours every day delivering his opinion on sports for 104.5-FM The Zone, he’s a Columbia Journalism School grad who, first and foremost, has been a journalist. So when huge ESPN cuts came down this year, Kuharsky was forced to make some hard decisions about his career. Instead of signing on with an established outlet, he started his own site where readers could pay him directly for his news and views. It’s a growing trend as the revenue models behind traditional journalism continue to be disrupted. We talked to him about the state of sports coverage and launching himself as a brand.

What went into the decision to launch paulkuharsky.com? I mean, you had some runway at the end of your ESPN contract. You knew that this was coming?

Yes. I mean, I had got notified in April that I’d be done in July, so I had a lot of time to consider what was going to be next, and my first inkling was, I come out of the era where you go find another job. I talked to some people in some stuff, but it wasn’t long before Fox Sports laid off their people, and it was clear that jobs weren’t cropping up, and to get in somewhere existing would be difficult. I had the benefit of being on The Midday 180 [on 104.5 FM], so I had a full-time job with benefits. I don’t know, I just was thinking that there’s a void covering the Titans without me in the mix. I heard from so many people saying, “I hope you’re still out there, I want to hear you asking the tough questions. I like your perspective, I think it’s different than anybody else can offer.” I do think there’s a void out there. I mean, [Titans Online’s Jim] Wyatt’s a good friend of mine, but he’s writing from the team side now, and who is the person for people to look to out there now if I’m not out there? I think the answer is no one. You’ve got a youngster that took my place — The Tennessean’s coverage has gotten really bad. I almost felt that obligation to people who’ve been loyal listeners and readers of mine to continue to serve them, if you will, and it’s what I like to do, it’s what I’m good at. It’s self-serving also, but I just kind of thought, “I think there are enough people who understand that the ads-only model is broken, and that in order to get the kind of quality stuff that you’re looking for that you feel like you might not be getting from The Tennessean and ESPN anymore, it’s going to cost a little bit.” For the price of a fancy cup of coffee or a good beer a month, you can still get it, and that’s kind of where I started.

Do you think being a radio personality helps or hurts you launch this? You’re not necessarily a straight beat writer, even though you’re doing a lot of that work.

Yeah, I don’t think people want a straight beat writer anymore. I mean, I think there should be one, I think the papers of record should have one — that’s the nuts-and-bolts guy who gets everything out there. But if I’m out [covering] Mike Mularkey and he offers an injury report, there are six people tweeting that out live, and that’s not what people need from me. They need me to go deeper, so I might tweet out the important injury thing, because I know you’re following me and you want to know what the latest is on Corey Davis. But once Corey Davis is on the field, I think I’m uniquely qualified to talk to people and to find out what Corey Davis is good at, and why he’s not good at something else and how his development is coming along, and those sort of things.

I think the radio personality helps me in every regard, and I’m selling Titans coverage for sure, but I’m also selling my personality. I think people have an affinity and a loyalty to me. Some of them hate me, and I understand that I’m polarizing, but I think I’m fortunate that I’ve gotten myself in a position that people want to hear what I have to say on issues of the day, particularly the Titans ones.

You work for the team station, you’re reporting on the team. What kind of independence should I expect from you?

I’m completely independent. I mean, working for the team station has no bearing on anything. If the Titans have ever had an objection to something that’s come out of The Zone, who’s their broadcast partner, it’s never reached me. Believe me, I have plenty of issues with the Titans, but I have relationships with people over there where I have had to have conversations — “I disagree with what you wrote,” or, “I think you’re unfair with what you wrote about X.” If I write something negative about a guy, he can expect to see me in the locker room very soon after that, and if he wants to talk it through or tell me why I’m a jerk or yell at me, that’s all part of the job.

The thing that held me back to any degree over the last nine years was ESPN. I mean, you know there’s just certain things understandably that they didn’t want you to do or to say. I wasn’t allowed to be a media critic at ESPN, so I couldn’t tell you that I thought The Tennessean was terrible. I could say it on the radio occasionally, but I certainly couldn’t include it in what I wrote. Or I couldn’t have the Twitter fight that I had with Jason La Canfora. I’m unleashed on stuff like that now.

Who did you look at model-wise for this? I mean, because there’s a couple people — what’s the Pittsburgh guy, Dejan Kovacevic?

Yeah, I looked at [Kovacevic’s site] DK [Pittsburgh] Sports, I obviously was aware of what [Greg] Bedard was doing in Boston, and you know I like what The Athletic is doing. I had a very good conversation with them early, and then that kind of fizzled, and I understand why, based on all the hiring they’ve been doing of national guys and in the markets that they’re focused on. My model was a little bit like their model, though I’m selling a little bit more me, a little bit more personality. Listen, you used to subscribe to your local newspaper, you probably have a Tennessean subscription, but for the $6 I’m asking or the $6 The Athletic is asking, you’re going to get stuff that’s well beyond what’s available to you in free places.

You’re on air to have an opinion every day, but certainly people are coming to you for analysis and coverage in addition to your opinion. Is there a danger of being hot-take-y on your site?

I don’t think so at all, because I hate hot-take-y, and I’ve never written anything or said anything on the air that I don’t believe. I am hugely into authentic and organic, and people ask [104.5’s Jonathan Hutton and Chad Withrow] all the time if I’m really like that off the air. There’s not a bit of shtick to what I am on the air, this is totally me, and I’ve got strong takes. I offer strong takes, people seem to like strong takes, but I’ve never sat down and said, “I need a hot take on X.” If I don’t have one on a certain subject, that’s fine. The show has a way of helping me kind of generate and formulate some things that I spin off and make bigger. The site — ESPN previously and now the site — has a way of getting me to the same thing, it’s kind of symbiotic. I’ll come up with something and I’ll write something, and then we’ll discuss it on the air.

In terms of a Stephen A. Smith and Skip Bayless saying things that are patently unbelievable, that they are saying just to spark some kind of a reaction, I get plenty of reaction out of my honest, authentic, organic opinions, and I’m very wary of doing anything that strays from that. Again, here’s another thing, like I’m not shopping for clicks that way. I don’t need a headline that’s going to draw a bunch of people in, and I say this in my sales pitch on the site. I’m looking to super-serve a small club, and I think that small club — if you’re paying $6 a month to come read me — you want to hear what I have to say no matter what it is really, and I don’t have to find some hot-take headline to draw you in, you’re already in.

There’s levels of membership, from the $6 a month “I want to hear what you’ve got to say about the Titans,” all the way up to the “I just bought myself a new best friend” level for $100 a month.

Yeah, yeah. I wanted to do more. I was inspired by Patreon, which I should mention, and that’s something I looked at very closely and considered doing. They take 10 percent though, which seemed to me expensive. I don’t think it could look distinctive on there, the way I want to look distinctive with this kind of Hatch Show Print feel that I hope my site has, but I really liked the levels that they were doing and stuff. I wish that I found something between the $5.99 a month or yearly membership for the price of 11 months and the Starting 22, which is extreme on the other side, which I was very nervous about, which friends made fun of me about, but which some people told me they thought would definitely sell, and which sold out in two days.

Wow, that’s a mortgage payment, isn’t it?

Yeah, 22 people paid $100 a month. [There will be] four annual get-togethers. I’ll play golf with you once a year or do something comparable, so I’m with you and three buddies or whatever, and you get my cellphone number, and you can text me within reason. You’ve got direct access to a guy who’s got direct access to your team. 

Could you do this if the Titans were still completely in the shitter, if it didn’t look like that they had an upward trajectory?

It would be a lot harder, I think, but I still think if Ken Whisenhunt was here and they were terrible, there would be a market for my assessment of why they’re bad and my wrestling matches with him. I think it’s better for somebody like me that they’d be really good or really bad, I think 8-8 is kind of more the danger zone, almost in a way. Also, them being in the shitter created a whole new draft market, and when you’ve got the No. 1 pick in the draft and the No. 2 pick in the draft and you’re making trades and stuff, those off-seasons were bigger than they’d ever been. 

When we get to February, for example, might you go do some Preds stuff if the Preds are on a similar run, or are you only going to be Titans?

I’m going to go to what’s big in Nashville, so if I was doing this last year and the Preds were on that Stanley Cup run, I definitely would have written about the Preds. I mean, I wouldn’t have written about it in any way that was like a beat writer, I would have written some stuff about it as a columnist. I wouldn’t have written about left-wing lock or on-ice strategy or any of that stuff, I would have written about the stuff that I was finding fascinating during that run. If MLS shows up here, I’ll do the same thing. If there’s something to be written about Vandy, I’ve already written about Vanderbilt football and how I think it would be ridiculous for them to go to an MLS stadium.