Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Diversity in Canadian Sports Media: Toronto Mike'd #407

Episode Date: December 7, 2018

Mike chats with Sherali Najak, senior producer at Hockey Night in Canada, Sophia Jurksztowicz, co-host of the Jack and Soph podcast, and Scott Moore, former President of Sportsnet and NHL properties for Rogers Communications about diversity in Canadian sports media.

Welcome to episode 407 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Propertyinthe6.com, Paytm Canada, Palma Pasta, Fast Time Watch and Jewelry Repair, and Census Design and Build. and jewelry repair and census design and build. I'm Mike from torontomike.com. And joining me to discuss diversity in Canadian sports media is Shirely Najak, senior producer of Hockey Night in Canada, Sofia Yerstukovic, co-host of the Jack and Sothe podcast, and Scott Moore, former president of Sportsnet and NHL Properties for Rogers Communications.

Welcome everybody. Thank you. Morning. What's up, Mike? Nice to hear you guys. Thanks so much for being here. It's episode 407, but it's the first episode to feature four microphones. So a big thank you to Blue Sky Agency for supplying the podcast with a new microphone just for this occasion.

So thanks, Doug, for making that happen. Before we meet our guests, I want to thank Bubba O'Neill and Kayla Gray, who really helped me appreciate their perspective as people of color in Canadian sports media. Kayla was actually going to be on this podcast, this roundtable, but needed to withdraw because she couldn't secure child care. I also want to thank Ashley Docking, who was booked on this podcast, but had to withdraw because she got a shift on the terrestrial radio. So you can't say no to that. So I will let the listeners know that Ashley will be back for a one-on-one deep dive in January. Shirely, let's start with you because you're actually making your Toronto Mic'd debut today. And it's been really special so far. Yes, and because it's your debut, you haven't learned.

You have to be right on that microphone, sir. So eat that mic. Now, let's let listeners know that you also will be back here on Toronto Mic'd for a one-on-one deep dive. Okay. In the new year. That's happening. So you can get more lasagna and more beer out of me. I'm with you.

But can you tell us a little bit about what you do for Hockey Night in Canada? So I produce a lot of the Leaf games on Saturdays. I've been with Hockey Night for a little while now. And I'm a truck producer. So when you see replays, when you hear commentators on the air, I'm basically in the mobile, in the television mobile, along with a lot of other crew that execute the game. So I'm a trenches guy. He's also everybody's mentor in the world, but we can get to that later. Yeah, and I would say he's very modest.

He is one of, if not the best, television storyteller in Canada. Amen. Wow. You might need a couple of deep dives. Yeah, I was going to say, well, you're unemployed, but I'm not going to say that now.

It's only me and Soul Federal. Between triumphs, we like to call it. Between triumphs. Well, Shirely, great to meet you. I already like you because you had a real cool hat on when you came here, and you have a City in Color t-shirt. Well, I know you pump out the jams a lot, so I was picking concert. I love concert tees.

Any concert I go to, if I like it, I'm buying a tee. Well, listen, we'll kick out the jams after. If your deep dive goes well, you'll be back to kick out the jams for sure. Sophia, welcome back. Thank you. I love being here. This is your third appearance. Last time you won my heart.

You stole my heart because you biked to my place here. Yeah, from pretty far too. And you were the first person to do that. Well, I like biking. You know that I biked to CBC when I worked there, and I biked to sports net when i work there as well all the time but i know we bonded over that but you didn't bike today no it's too cold it's minus five and i've got to be on air later so the helmet the hat all that

matters with uh with this the sweatiness you don't want to be sweaty on air no it's kidding only crazy people bike at this time of year please i'm glad'm glad you didn't bike. But can you tell us all, update us briefly on what you're up to these days? Sure. So I'm a freelance journalist, I guess, or host, journalist, host, reporter, slash presenter. And I mostly work right now out of the CBC, but I do co-host, as you introduced me, a show with Jackie Redman, a former colleague, work colleague of mine. And we host a podcast called Jack and Soph. It's on Yahoo, Canada Sports.

And I just, I work freelance for a million different places. I guess I'm getting a lot of work right now with the NHLPA too, which has been a lot of fun to stay in the hockey world. But I would say CBC is where I'm mostly at. Now, just a quick question, because I know Jackie's in New York, right? So you podcast, you're here in Toronto, and she's in New York, and you kind of meet in the middle somewhere.

Yeah, so we each have, obviously the viewers can't see what we're talking about, but the mics and the board, we each have one of those. And through the power of the internet and through Skype, we watch each other, and we are able to act as if we're in the same room, and somehow it works.

This internet fad I hear, it's going to catch on. So Scott, your recent appearance on Toronto Mic resulted in some tremendous feedback. Just want you to know that was fantastic. That's nice. That's nice. I enjoyed it. And I'm sorry you drew the short straw. You're on the new microphone, which doesn't yet have the swing boom arm. Nor do I have a headset, so I am flying blind. That's right. That's a story I'm going to tell maybe on the next episode, the story of the headset. So Chris Brown, if you're listening, thank you so much for supplying the podcast with

a new headset. But later I'll tell you why it was the worst thing you could have done for me. It'll all make sense later. Scott, how was your trip? You went to Australia. Was in Australia for a little over a month. It was great. My wife and I were up and down one side of Australia, went down to Tasmania as well. Did a lot of hiking, kayaking, scuba diving, as well. Did a lot of hiking, kayaking, scuba diving, and brain draining. Just relaxed and got out of the rat race for a while. Dude, that picture of you in the scuba diving

suit. Was it on the internet? I didn't see it. It was not. Certain things should not be shared on the internet. Me in a wetsuit would be one of them. I'm thinking about airing it on set.

Scare the children. I want to see this picture now. Now, Scott, are you ready now? You weren't ready last time you were here. You were still winding things down at Rogers, but are you prepared to announce on Toronto Mic your next move? Nope. Are you ready to announce any clues?

My next move will be going up to Thornbury to move into our new house and doing a little skiing. And then the next move after that, does it involve a Starbucks and watching Frasier, anything of that nature? Nope. No comment.

You could be the audio technician for Toronto Mike. That'd be good. There's clearly an opening for that. The after show. Yes. Maybe I'll do a bonus episode later and tell the true story of what happened there's clearly an opening for that. The after show. Yes. Maybe I'll do a bonus episode later and tell the true story of what happened

before I pressed record. We're going to do things here. Obviously, you know this because you've been watching me at work here, but we're going to do things a little differently today. So thank you to every Toronto Mike sponsor for fueling the real talk.

All three of you are going to get a fresh six packpack of craft beer from Great Lakes Brewery. Amazing. Hold your applause. Applause away. You're also going to get a delicious lasagna from Palma Pasta. It's in the freezer right now.

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They're making all of this possible. And I do need maybe a new headphone sponsor, but I'll work on that. Shirely, remember earlier we were chatting and I referred to you all as civil sweethearts. Is that the term I used? Yes, you did. Civil sweethearts.

So let's us all have an open and frank discussion. I'll moderate, I'll do my best impersonation of Steve Paikin, if you will. But feel free to chat amongst yourselves. And I think we'll all agree that this is a conversation worth having. And on that note, let me ask you each why you felt strongly about being here today and part of this roundtable. I'll start that. I think this is a conversation that needs to be had, needs to be had more often. And that's diversity, not just in sports media, but in media in Canada. And it needs to happen as much as possible without the emotion and the accusations around it.

And that's difficult to do because it's an emotional subject. I can say that I was prepared to come on because not being currently affiliated, it's a lot easier to have the conversation without feeling any of those emotions or guilt or corporate responsibility. So before we get going, I want to make sure that people understand I am not speaking on behalf of Rogers or Sportsnet or anybody else, but I'm speaking with having had the experience of working there, working at CBC, working at TSN. So happy to have, wherever the conversation goes, happy to contribute to it.

Abhi, Soph? Yeah, no, I felt strongly about coming on only because I can represent one side of diversity in sports media, and that is just being female, although I am white, so I'm not a person of color. But in my experience, which has been a rollercoaster experience in this business, as it is for anyone, I have seen both sides of being used as a female in very stereotypical roles, but then also being challenged to do more with what's been, I guess, made my task in television. And so I wanted to talk about my experiences as being a female in sports media and the good, the bad, and the ugly,

but a lot of good there as well, but all three. But we want the ugly. Just kidding. Shirely, how about you? My thinking is that I think diversity and bridging the gender cap has always been kind of like a nice to have. I don't think it's been a major priority any place that I've worked, like major in terms of a business priority.

I think it's a business imperative now. It is at the forefront of conversations in hallways, very much at the forefront. And there's a lot of conversation around it. There's very few that I think champion the change on it. Scott's a lot of conversation around it um there's very few that i think champion the change on it scott's been one of them i know he has even in his uh i don't know if you if you hope don't mind me saying this but at your goodbye speech and stuff he talked about it so i just think it's it's it's time to just get real about it and i i think you mentioned

something that's really important to talk about is that diversity now is not just a nice political thing to talk about. Diversity is good business. That as a television network, as a radio network, as a media company, you're going to do better with your audience if you reflect them. And the face of Canada has changed significantly over the last 20 years. And if you're not reflecting that, then you're falling behind. So it's no longer, hey, let's do it because we think it's the right thing to do, which by the way, is a good reason to do it too. But for big business, they realize that being more diverse in front of and behind the camera, and we got to talk about both, is good for your business. I think in a lot of businesses actually aren't. I wish I had the numbers in front of and behind the camera, and we got to talk about both, is good for your business? I think in a lot of businesses actually aren't.

I wish I had the numbers in front of me. I don't. So it's not fair to quote something and then not be able to be specific. But there are studies that prove that if you bring a different person, if you have a majority, even females, let's say, in a boardroom,

but you're bringing in a couple of younger men and older men, then you're opening up your mind when you're doing ideas and that's just good for all business, right? Absolutely. And I've had to argue in certain situations to have more diversity on my management team, forget on camera, not because it was the right thing to do, but because that diversity of opinion is really important. And women bring a different perspective to the management team. People of color bring a different perspective.

And people from different socioeconomic backgrounds bring a whole different perspective. And as you're trying to reach an audience, you need all those perspectives. And the more, the merrier, wherever you can get them. Absolutely. Actually, Scott, that's a good point, talking about having diversity on your executive team and having that reflected in the employees that are hired there. And I just want to play a brief clip of Kayla Gray. This is Kayla on Toronto Mic during her appearance, This is Kayla on Toronto Mic during her appearance, and it ties in nicely with that.

I do think that when it comes to this industry, because a lot of it is, as you know, who you know. Well, if you are kind of around the same type of people, it's not to say white people are all the same, but when you're just kind of around the same kind of environment and stuff, it's hard to bring something that you might not be so familiar with because it's uncomfortable. Yes. Scott, I only realized after I started playing it

that you didn't have headphones on. How is Scott ever going to hear this? But that was Kayla. Essentially, people tend to... My friend Perry, he does a lot of speaking to HR groups. to hear this but that was kayla essentially uh you know people tend to and my my friend uh perry he does a lot of speaking to to hr groups uh he works for for linkedin and he raised this point that people tend to hire people that kind of they relate to that have their similar experiences and backgrounds and stuff so if an executive team is a bunch of white guys what usually ends up

happening is they hire white guys. And it's very important to have diversity at the higher levels to have it trickle down, so to speak. For sure. I think maybe the best advice I was ever given on this topic, and I don't know that it was specifically meant to be about diversity,

was from a former boss of both Shirely's and mine, Richard Sturzberg, who one of my favorite bosses ever. And he looked at me one day and he said, Scott, stop hiring yourself. You have a tendency, not just from an ethnic standpoint, but you hire people who tend to be, in my case, outgoing. In my case, people who have been former producers.

And because you tend to be comfortable with them. And the minute you stop doing that, you realize that you're going to hire people who have different skill sets, who complement your weaknesses, and who bring their own strengths. And I use that phrase all the time, stop hiring yourself. Now, you want to have some people like you, but you want to have more people who are unlike you. How do you fight against your subconscious? It's a great question. And there's, I know at Rogers and CBC, there's a lot of work being done by well-meaning HR people to try and teach people how to recognize their biases, and in some cases,

their unconscious biases, right? And if you look just the way society in general works, people of similar backgrounds tend to socialize with each other. And it starts sometimes in our churches and our communities that if you belong to a church, you are with all Anglicans or all Muslims or all whatever your background is. And so communities tend to be sometimes a little insular. And in the corporate world, you've got to break out of that insularity to bring all those communities together, because as I said, I think it's good business to do that. Let me ask the, before we even get any deeper here, does Canada have a diversity problem when it comes to sports media? I think if you were to look, so we're not talking about behind the scenes, generally the answer is yes.

Or not generally, the answer is yes. or not generally, the answer is yes. But we were talking off of the mic that there are many non-white males employed behind the scenes as well that the viewership doesn't have the privilege of seeing and understanding some of that work and that's through no fault of their own. They're just not in front of the camera.

But I would say the short answer is yes. I think in sports media, I don't think it's there and I think the gender gap is huge on air and I don't know if we're giving enough credit to the conversations that are happening like there's a lot of meetings that I'm in that it is talked about it definitely is and you know even in the sports meetings I know it ends up being somewhat of a priority for people. I just don't know if the systems are set up where it ends up being a priority on the air. Yeah, but one of the things I wanted to bring to the table today is that the change to bring more diversity in will never happen

as quickly as people want it, but it should happen quicker than it's happening. But there's a reason why it won't happen as quickly as you want it, is that there's already an establishment of people who are currently employed, and you can't just all of a sudden get rid of all of them and start again. And I used this example the other day when I was having this discussion with my sister, actually. When Justin Trudeau set the example of having a gender equal cabinet, and there are a lot of women, by the way, who thought that was a bad thing because they thought it was tokenism. I disagree. I thought it was setting a great example. And he had a lot of women to draw from for his

cabinet. But it's easier to do that with a federal cabinet, because every four years, you're starting fresh, right? So you're starting from zero, you don't get that opportunity. In in the corporate world, you can't just suddenly say, okay, we're going to fire everybody that's currently working here. And who happen to be predominantly white, male, or whatever, and start again. So it has to be evolutionary. And if you're going to be evolutionary in a business that is not necessarily expanding in the moment, in fact, the media business is contracting a bit in Canada. So every new opportunity to hire, you have to take it as an opportunity to at least look

at diversity. And I would say in the 20 years ago, if two people were equal, the bias was to hire the white male. Now, if two people are equal, you're going to have to think about hiring the diverse person because that's the only way you're going to grow the diversity of your company because you can't just start fresh. You know what's funny? I was waiting for an, 10, 11, 12, I was obsessed with Sportsnet 590, the fan. It was just the fan, actually. There was no Sportsnet. And I listened to it all the time.

And I would call in all the time to be on air. But this, I'm going to say, was 20 years ago, 20 to 50 years ago. You're not that old. But it was a long time ago. And what I noticed was that I would say, they'd say, what's your name? The producer would answer and I'd say, Sophia, what do you want to talk about? I want to talk about this point that Bob made or whoever was on the air at the time. And I would never get on. Now, I came up with an idea when I was 11. I was like,

I'm going to say my name is Alex or Robin or something that can apply to a woman or a man so that when they bring me on, they're not going to be like, she lied to me because my name could be Alex or whatever name that you could think could apply to a man or a woman. And when I said my name was Alex, the button would get hit. And all of a sudden the host would be like, okay, we have Alex on the line. Alex, what's your opinion? And I would say, oh, hey, da-da-da-da. And you could tell in his voice that he was shocked and a lot of the times pissed and would say, okay, great, thanks for your opinion.

Next caller. And I felt this. I did this for years. And I was like, I don't care. I'm going to be on. And I'm going to voice my opinion. But I was the only female caller that I remember ever making it on.

But it wasn't until I changed my name, and it wasn't Sophia. And that's a true story. That's a great story. That's a really good story, Alex. That's how you got on the podcast. You told Mike that your name was Alex. Exactly.

You didn't know that. So let me ask you straight out, Sophia. Yeah. Did you find it more difficult for you as a woman to make strides in this industry, the Canadian sports media industry? I mean, I've had some wonderful leaders and all of them have been male that have really pushed me and put me in opportunities to succeed. So I'm very thankful for that.

But, and we were saying this off mic too, that the truth is a lot of the roles I've had, I felt were stereotyped towards a woman. And I would say a lot of it has changed even the last five years, but at the time when I was kind of making it and breaking it, they were stereotyped as either, whether it be a sideline or someone that the, the, um, the panel throws to, and I throw back to the panel, you're not actually there with a real thought or opinion, um, or a news story. I was doing a lot of Twitter work and I remember, and I won't call this person out. And, you know, I want to be, I want the viewers to know that,

by the way, I worked under Scott and Scott's always been wonderful. So I don't mean to, you know, loop you into this because you had so many people to oversee. You may not have been aware of this, but I remember working once on Hockey Night in Canada, doing the Twitter stuff, which is what I did. And by the way, Shrelly's been a mentor and fantastic to me as well. But I remember somebody, and I won't name him either, pushing me to do more to, he would say, be smarter. I know you know your stuff. Don't just talk about Twitter. And he pushed

me. And one day I did. And I, instead of talking about Twitter, I talked more about a news story that was hockey related to the X's and the O's and just more smart, so to speak. And somebody took me off to the side and said, I don't know what you think you're doing, but stick to effing Twitter because you're not doing, you're not Elliot Friedman. You're not Elliot Friedman. And that killed me. It really did. But like, I didn't know what to do. I was like, I don't want to be the girl on hockey night in Canada that's doing Twitter. But at the same time, I am getting exposure. I've got to make the most of this situation. And, you know, I think, and I was saying to these guys that I meet people, I'm not doing this anymore. I meet people. And since then, a lot of the people I meet tell me that they're

very surprised with the type of person I am because it's not the impression that they got from me on television. And that kills me because I feel like I have so much more to offer than maybe was portrayed. Because you, you compared yourself to a famous letter turner. Can I say? What did I say? You tell me. Vanna White. Oh, yes.

The Vanna White of, someone else said that in the office, that I was the Vanna White and that really bothered me. But I was at a point to, you know, once you go through something like being let go from a place, you learn a lot. I was having, you know, some personal things at home happening with my dad. And so I've gone through this phase of maybe growth and of course of not being afraid to stick up for myself. And at the time when I was working there, I was just kind of like, oh, okay, that hurt and didn't say anything or didn't do anything. Whereas like

now I'm in a position where I'm like, hey man, let's look, you know, help me out here. And so, and Scott, you know, it's, it's hard for me to say this to you because you were managing that, but I understand that you were not, you couldn't be involved with my, my role was very small and you had this George, like that was a big thing that you had to manage. Ron and Don, Don was giving you a hard time saying, oh, we got to go. We only have five minutes. I remember that. You had a lot.

So I can't expect everyone to be aware of what I may have been going through. But now that I've had time to reflect, some of the things were tough, for sure. I'm disappointed to hear that, but it doesn't surprise me. And one of the reasons why I wanted to do this podcast is by having the conversation more often, you help to change attitudes. And not only do you have to change the attitudes of whoever that producer or management person is, you have to change the attitudes of the people who are listening. And when we first started putting people like Jodie Vance and Hazel May and others on camera and hosting shows, and outside of those traditional roles,

hosting shows and outside of those traditional roles, you know, the feedback sometimes from some male viewers and some female viewers sometimes was they don't belong. They shouldn't be doing that. I think we've progressed to a point, but there's still a large faction of viewers and listeners who don't accept it and need to understand that they should. And one of the things I wanted to ask you about, and I, I warned you, I was going to ask you about this is I was shocked about two years ago when we had a discussion amongst some of the female on-camera people at Sportsnet about how many hateful, pornographic, sexist things they get on social media. And have you been subjected to that? Yes, I have.

I will say 100% I've gone through that compared to some of my colleagues, and I don't know why. I don't receive that much hate, which is obviously nice. But of course, I have had comments that are mind-blowingly inappropriate um but you you are used to you you I can't even acknowledge them because I'm like okay like I don't even take them seriously it doesn't hurt me but they are hurtful uh or they would be if my mom or dad read them they would be hurt uh and then of course yes I've had a lot of people you know even on the podcast I with Jackie right now we get some comments like what the f do you guys know about

hockey like drop it you don't F do you guys know about hockey? Drop it. You don't know what you're talking about. So you hear that all the time. And it sucks. But I mean, men get it too. I know that men get like, you suck on air. I think men get you suck on air or you're an idiot or you don't know what you're talking about.

They don't get the sexist stuff. Although, and this is where I'd love to get Shirely in, I know having talked to Faisal at Sportsnet that he's had some very hurtful things sent to him because he's Muslim and because he's brown. And he's been called a terrorist. And that's just a faction of the audience that needs to evolve and grow up.

So a couple things. I think what you're talking about originally when you said about the audience doesn't accept, I think there was, as leaders in the business, there was always a fear of alienating your core because it related to your business. In my mind, I've thought about that, and I've thought, well, as opposed to alienating, let's engage them with different voices. The other thing about attacking women on social media, the person that has impressed me the most out there is Rosemary Barton. Rosemary takes shots every day because she's on the national and she's opinionated and she's

stands out. she's a little different in terms of her delivery and i've loved i don't know rosemary but and i'd be very nervous to meet her um but she has been an on-air mentor for me when people ask me you know in sports when people used to come to me and say who you know what what what should i be like and i'd say okay who are your people that you emulate? And they'd say Ron McLean or Don Cherry or Brian Williams, all these different types of people. And I'd say, go watch

Rosemary because she just emulates a depth and an understanding. Who did you emulate as a person of color in this industry? And I'm going to play a clip after your response of Bubba O'Neill. He's got a short clip I'm going to play a clip after your response of Bubba O'Neill. He's got a short clip I'm going to play.

Bubba C-H-C-H. Right. Yeah. Yeah, it's the man. Tell me, who would you look up to? And also, similar question I asked Sophia, did you experience any obstacles because you weren't a white guy? Is this something you experienced? So when I was in college, I remember being told, i remember just being very naive and stupid and loving the business and i remember

saying to a third year student and i was in first year at that time and i said yeah i'm gonna apply at the cbc my dream was to work at the cbc and and i got told right to my face they don't hire people like you i was who said that a person in class, like a person that was above me in school. Gotcha. It was just very accepted and yeah, they don't hire people like you. And it was total discrimination. I was just so naive and I was relentless, relentless in my pursuit of my goals. I always want, and I talk about this a lot, where I always want to create the possibility

to be the best in the absolute world at what I'm doing. That doesn't mean I am. I just want to create that conversation for myself. So have I been discriminated against? Yeah, probably not. Probably not more so than other people of my race and women who are in the business. There's just such a fear of the conversation, though, and the fear comes in because the business is contracting. now that works at Sportsnet, whoever it is, to be able to say it. And for us as leaders or as peers to be able to represent that.

That's where that fear has to go away. John Saunders, sadly, has passed away. Tremendous sports media person. I used to watch him on City TV. But he once told Bubba O'Neill, and I'm going to play a clip from Bubba O'Neill in a minute. Scott will need you to listen in on Sophia's headphones, maybe. But he told Bubba that you need to work twice as hard to advance in this industry than, and this was, again, John Saunders telling Bubba as Bubba told me this story. You have to work twice as hard as a white guy because you're a person of color. This was the advice, the frank, honest advice. Do you find any truth in that statement that John shared

with Bubba? Absolutely. I've found that advice being told to me about women in the business. I remember John Shannon, who never wants to appear on the show. I know everybody texts him about it, but I love that he's never gotten back to you.

Him giving that advice and putting it out there. I remember we were way back when I was working at Hockey Night in the mid-90s. We were like, geez, this lady, Catherine Humphreys, she's awesome. And I remember telling John, we got to hire Catherine Humphreys. And he's like, yeah, okay, go for it. Talk to her and stuff. And she didn't want to leave city at that time.

But yeah, you got to work harder. I don't know if if that if that's the reason why or you just shouldn't work harder anyway but you shouldn't have to work harder than someone else because your skin color is different than that person you should yeah but let me play a different clip from baba o'neill and then we'll talk about that you know every once in a while i have to i have to slap myself in the face about it and just think about it, because I think even at this point right now,

how many black males are there telling sports right now, sitting at a desk, anchoring sports right now in this country? Can you count? In that position, because I can think, of course, I can see there's like Paul Jones doing Raptors, but that's more of a calling. And I'm thinking there's a couple of guys on the panel for the CFL.

But those are panel guys. I can't think of one. There's one in Sportsnet, a young guy that they've just acquired. TSN doesn't have any. I mean, they have Nabil. And so they have some colors, we'll quote. Non-white people. Some colors is what we call them.

I'm not calling them that. But they really are not. I mean, and that is shocking to me. And I've had a lot of young kids, some of them black and of different races and creeds, and said, like, what's going on in the industry here? And I can't answer for many of the people that hire out there. Um, there's Jason Portwondo for who was at Sportsnet

and he was eventually let go. Um, Richard Provenche, who was hired the very first year of Sportsnet, He lasted one year. Jermaine Franklin, I guess, is a reporter for TSN. I'm struggling to think of... They had Paul Jones, Mark Jones, probably, at TSN for one year or one year before he went to ESPN. There's just not a lot of guys out there.

And how do I feel about it? I'm kind of surprised. I can't believe I'm the only one that's passionate about sports that is able to sit at the desk and entertain people and give them their highlights and their news. It's disappointing to me. So, Scott, how would you respond?

Because he said, I can't speak for people in positions of power, but you had that position for many years. So what's your response? A couple of things. First off, I think it's really important that people are able to see, if they're younger, they're able to see themselves on television. They're able to see that there's a role model that they would look up to and say, Bubba's on television.

I can be on television. So yeah, I can remember going to Ryerson to speak and I speak there a lot, maybe 10, 15 years ago. And the, the class, a sports class was almost totally homogenized white. And the reason was because if I'm a young black guy, I'm going, well, what's the point? Nobody's going to hire me. Now you go to Ryerson and you see a lot more diversity. And yeah, I'll tell a story that I

was having lunch with Ian Hannah-Mansing one day, and I'm blanking on the guy's name who's on CP24, who came up to him and said, I'm on television because I saw you on television. Maybe Gurdip. Yes, it was Gurdip. And you need that. And the other part of the story, and Mark Jones is the perfect example of this, in the US, they've been a lot, I think, a lot better at hiring diversity. And Mark, as soon as he was on TSN, I can remember this because I was not there at the time, but he called me and said, I want to go to the States. And I said, Mark, I don't know that you're ready. But he clearly had potential.

And ABC looked at him and said, there's a smart young black guy. We're going to hire him. So instead of him developing in Canada, he developed in the States. And he's done some on the other night. He's terrific. Well, I mentioned John Saunders because Bubba, that was somebody that was a role model for Bubba. But John, again, is a good example. Yes, he was on our television in Toronto, City TV.

I watched him. But he ended up having a great career in the USA. And again, not because he had, I don't think it was because he had to leave. It was because somebody in the States saw him and said, we're looking for diversity and there's somebody good. Let's go to Canada and get them. So we need to do a better job of developing those people in Canada and where possible keeping them in Canada.

But you don't want to stand in their way of, you know, Mark's done very, very well. John did well. You know, the next step to that is, in preparation for this, I was thinking, geez, who could I talk to? So I talked to my niece, who's a smart cookie. She always tells me that.

And she's tired of mannels. Tired of mannels. Oh, panels and all the mannels. Yeah, she's telling me that a mannel at a business conference would not be accepted. Why is it accepted on television? So, and I keep going back to, you know, not at the expense of good people. You can't do diversity at the expense of good people, but you can do it as a mindset, not as a band-aid.

You know who I saw recently, and this was last summer maybe max two summers ago so recently and for me i was like whoa i absolutely back scott by saying unless you see yourself or sorry unless you see someone it's hard to see yourself but jessica mendoza on espn was on it there was a male host throwing to a female expert a female analyst analyst. I never see that. And it's, she was talking about baseball. She was a softball player. Um, but it was him saying, setting her up to answer the question, which is normally the female's job stereotypically to I'll set up the question cause I don't have to give an answer. And you set up the male, which I also would say, um, you know, you'd have to have the more knowledgeable person, But as we know, you know, Cassie Campbell-Pascal,

for instance, she would be a great one. And she does do a lot of work with CBC. But anyway, to see it on ESPN, a man throw to Jessica, who was the expert, was mind-blowing to me and really cool to see. Yeah, there's two things there I'd like to talk about. One is, as an executive, you have to have a lot

of courage to do that. And let's give Joel Darling at CBC a lot of credit for Cassie. He put Cassie into the analyst role on an NHL game for the first time, I think. And the pushback from the establishment, why is a woman doing analysis on a men's game? And Cassie is one of the best hockey players there has ever been in Canada. She didn't play the men's game for sure,

but she knows the game. I still get pushback from certain people in the establishment about Cassie being on a broadcast. And the flip side of that is, and people can criticize me for this, but the reality is professional sports, as far as gender, professional sports is the last segregated industry in the world. And you're never going to get away from it because you're never going to have women playing men's professional sports or I don't see that happening because there are physical differences and so there is a bias towards having men who played the game being the analyst but that doesn't mean they're the only

ones that can do it and so I think there will always be more male analysts in professional sports than female analysts until we cover more female professional sports. That's a reflection of the system though. Not that they're not qualified to talk about it. That's because they- I mean, especially if you're thinking a beat reporter like Chris Johnson,

Elliott Friedman, who aren't anymore. They're now, they're insiders, but started out that way. You know, if you can talk about it and you've never played, who aren't anymore. They're now they're insiders, but started out that way. You know, if you can talk about it and you've never played, I don't know if Elliot has, then why can't this person? Whatever, right? But to Scott's point, he's right. When you have a former hockey player on like Kelly Rudy and Nick Kiprios,

you cannot get anyone better for the men's side of the game than a man who's played in the game. But when it comes to the other analysts. But if I may say, I just caught a... Don't tell anyone, Scott. I caught an illegal stream of the ESPN broadcasting the last Raptors game. Don't tell anyone.

But, I mean, Doris Burke is amazing. And she was... Unbelievable. In the booth. She was a color, I guess. She was the analyst. But again, the executive who put her in there, it's got to be brave.

And it's got to be ready to accept a lot of criticism. And sometimes that criticism is veiled. I will relate a story from an unnamed hockey executive who said to me that he didn't like Cassie as an analyst because, this is a direct quote, he didn't like her voice. What's he trying to say? That's a dog whistle, I think, for doesn't like her gender, I would say. That's just speculation on my part.

Found her voice. He probably had a bias. I'm guessing it was a he. It was. I can't imagine what cassie's gone through because she was uh when she was at hockey night way back she did a lot of color she did she was a color analyst for a lot of games and she was really good and then in the shift it was like it was this big thing that oh my gosh he's gonna color now, where it was a normal thing for her

and her, her strength for saying what she has to say and, and sometimes I think not saying it is, is respect. And there was an incident that happened with, with Cassie about a year and a bit ago that I got involved in on Twitter. And I won't, I won't name the person, but a respected hockey journalist called her out

because he didn't think she should be commentating on Calgary Flames games because her husband works for the Calgary Flames. And I called him out on it publicly because he didn't make the same criticism of Louis DeBrusque, who commentates Boston Bruins games, whose son plays for the Boston Bruins.

And I thought it was, I won't call it sexist. I think, as we said earlier, I think it's an unconscious bias that this person said, well, this shouldn't happen and and looked at it at cassie as a female as opposed to a really qualified industry professional who does a great job i remember producing that game that she did her very first color game

and she was so calm and the person that helped her the most was Bob. Like the two of them were together, and she was just a rock. It was like no big deal. She was calling all the plays, and there was no issues. By the way, if I can just give a little levity to this, we call our analysts in Canada, we call them color commentators, right? Which maybe we should change that to analysts,

because I was doing, years ago, I was in Johannesburg leading up to the FIFA World Cup and I was doing an interview for South African broadcasting and they asked what CBC's plans were for, uh, for the, for the broadcast. And I said,

well, we've got a number of, uh, play by play and color commentators who are coming down here. And the woman who was doing the interview kept looking at me sideways when I said color commentators because I think she thought I was saying colored commentators. Right? And so I changed immediately to analyst.

So maybe we should just call these people analysts. Can I just say one thing? I know we don't have much time, and this is a discussion maybe for the next time we're all together, but when we're talking about diversity in sports media, the one thing we have missed is homosexual people. And we, when we talk about diversity, we're inclusive of, okay, is there enough color? Are there enough women? We haven't talked about gay people who also happen to be sports fans. Uh, some do, some aren't just like

straight people, some aren't, but there's that as well. And I've had, uh, I have many openly gay friends who talk about that as well and the issue of getting in, not even on air, but let's say you want to write, you want to this, but what you might feel being in that environment. So maybe that's a discussion

down the line but we haven't talked about it. It's another big barrier. For sure. It's a big one. And because I am sensitive to time constraints, mostly my fault, of course,

but I do want to play another clip from Kayla and then I have a very interesting question from Milan who owns a company that happens to sponsor this podcast but also buys time on the radio uh so i do yes oh thank you very much sophia uh so scott can hear this this is kayla kayla gray i think that we are in an interesting time where you know you look around the landscape and um i do think that there is room for diversity and i do feel as though it's not to say that this is like everyone's so white because they're not um and there are people like nabil kareem out there eric thomas out there um

that are doing it and basil and know, a lot of other people. And let's not discount them. But I think that I just sometimes, especially with now how I think we are crossing politics and sports. And yes, people, that is a thing. People are not just going to stick to sports anymore. Good. I think it would just be nice in Canada if we had some other voices to give their perspective on things.

And that's just like across the board. I mean, it's not to say like, let's have tokens in there, you know. It's to say hire people because they're good. And, you know, as much as ESPN might be under fire or whatever, however you might feel about the mothership, as people call it, you look at their roster of talent and it's pretty diverse. And I think how they achieved that was they just found people that were good, period, because they've been doing it with the Mike Wilbons for a very, very long time. It wasn't just new that all of a sudden they've had a staff that kind of reflects what American people look like. And, you know, up here, I just think that there's

still room for that. There's still room for that growth there. And it's not to say that the talent here is terrible. It's just to say, hey, could add to this the sports media industry by adding a couple of voices and and underground talent that we might not have paid attention to because we have our views of what a traditional anchor looks like or a traditional sports reporter looks like in canada that speaks well to like you know that comment that i don't like her voice because i think we've been groomed if you will in this and that this is how our analysts sound you know uh and i think uh kayla gray raised an interesting point about woman of color uh and we don't have a woman of color on this panel but uh you know we have a if you want to look for uh an area and like sophia said with

open openly gay people. We don't have any in sports media in this country that I know of. Do we? Yes. Openly gay?

Yes. Yes. You know what? I've been assuming he's open. I'm not going to say it. That's a big assumption. No, I know. But he talks about his dating

very open in the office. But I'm not going to say who it is just in case, but there is one, yes. But I think one of the interesting things that I wanted to bring up is that the challenge with having the conversation is quite often it comes down to a scorecard how many women do you have how many people of color

do you have and what what's the correct score and you're right it's it's funny because you can't, there's a saying in business, you only get what you measure. So you need to have a scorecard. But if it's just about, okay, you got to have exactly 50% women. You got to have, what's the percentage of black people in Canada? 12, 13%. You should have that. In fact, there's a higher percentage of South Asian people in Canada. So maybe you should have more South Asian people. What you would hope you get to is exactly what Kayla was saying, is you get to the point where you're hiring people because they're good. And because you've got the right pipeline of people that reflect the country, that it naturally ends up being at approximately the right balance. Because what's the right balance of women on the air in sports?

Because the reality is on Hockey Night in Canada, which is the most female-skewing hockey show, it's about 40% female audience. So does that mean you should have 40% female representation or should you have 50 or 51? And if you get too much into the scorecard, then you're hiring for the wrong reasons. You want to make sure you're hiring the right people but reflecting society wherever you can. And in order to do that, you're going to have to over-index for a while,

in my opinion. Because you're not like my boss now, I can disagree with you. I understand what you're saying about hiring organically, but then the argument comes up that we hire our conscious, we hire our bias. And unless we have targets and a scorecard for leaders that are in power positions, I don't think it's ever going to happen. Yeah, and that's – I think you have to have accountability for sure. And I was going to use this example that while I was at Sportsnet, we hired three young on-camera people. And again, the problem is not just on camera. I won't get back to that. And

I'll use the three people, Kyle Bukowskis, Faisal Kamisa, and Carolyn Cameron. And in each case, there were more qualified, more experienced people that we could have hired. And in probably almost all cases, they were probably white male. And we made those hires not because, in the case of Faisal and Carolyn, because they were diverse. That was a bonus. It was because they were good. And they've turned into great broadcasters, right?

it was because they were good and they've turned into great broadcasters. Right. But if, if every time a, a white person leaves the industry for whatever reason, uh, if you're just hiring another white person, you're never going to solve the problem. Right.

Um, so it's, you never want to use these as excuses, but they are realities that in a business that isn't expanding enough where there aren't enough new positions, you have to understand, as I said earlier, this isn't going to happen as quickly as it should.

Uh, it is not going to happen as quickly as if the industry was expanding a lot, but it needs to happen a lot quicker than it is. I think it needs to happen now. Yeah. Now, several listeners chimed in with questions and I don't have time to get to them all, but there's

one common thread that we touched upon. In fact, Kayla used the word token. She used the word token. And for example, Duddy, for example, who's a loyal listener, says, she wants to know how you guys respond to the argument that diversity is pandering to affirmative action.

But before you respond to that, Jay Reeves, for example, wants to know, is affirmative action, like this term, I believe it's American, right? Affirmative action is an American term, but affirmative action is still relevant. And then I want to read something Bubba O'Neill sent me this morning.

See, it's the Bubba show today. That's what's happening here. Bubba, he says, hello to you all. And he says he worked for Sportsnet for 11 years. He said with Scott Moore's guidance, he was the second minority to grace the network's airwaves. He did updates for CTV Newsnet, NHL, Raptors, Grizzlies. He says, I am hearing from many,

he put many in all caps, so I know he means business here. I am hearing from many white men in the industry that they are getting overlooked because the shift in the business has gone to hiring only minority women and men. Scott, has the recent changing in hiring practices hurt white males in our industry?

So here's a little flip side here. Has a pendulum swung too far? What's Bubba sharing here? Oh, that's a great question. You know, I'll give you an example from my own life. I'm interested, and this can be my plea to people out there, I'm interested in being on some corporate boards. Corporate boards are now very, very interested in diversity,

very interested in getting more women on the boards, more diversity on the board, more, uh, more diversity on boards. And I realize that's going to limit my opportunities. And you know what? I accept it. It's just the way it is.

And, you know, I had this very passionate discussion with my brother-in-law in Brisbane the other day, because he, he believes that there's some tokenism going on. I'm going to tell you from experience that there are, I would hope, I've never ever hired someone for tokenism, but I have hired people understanding that bringing

them in will increase diversity, but I hired them because they were good. And I go back to what I said earlier, that sometimes, and it's going to be a judgment thing, sometimes if two people are equal, you're going to go with the diverse person because you need diversity, because it's good business. I've been asked that a lot, and all I say is there's no fear of extinction for you. You're going to be around.

And you bring up the Fan 590 picture a lot. Actually, can I put a pin in that for a moment? All right, it's your show. Because I mentioned Milan, who had a question, and I'm worried about, for time constraints, I don't want to miss this. So let me play it, because it introduces that topic, which he's very passionate about, because he spends a lot of their budget,

marketing budget at the Fan 590. So I'll let Milan take it from here. Yes, thank you. Hello, Toronto Mike. It's Milan from Fast Time, watch and jewelry repair. A special thank you to Sophia, Scott, and Shirely for having this very important dialogue. First off to Scott and Shirely,

thank you for introducing Hockey Night in Canada, the Punjabi edition. As someone of South Asian descent, it's been great to see. My question for the panel, as someone who passionately grew up listening to the Fan 590, please refer to episode 397 of Toronto Mike.

And now as a business sponsor with Rogers Media, why has there been such a lack of diversity when it comes to women and minorities hosting primetime slots on the fan in a city as multicultural as Toronto? The infamous promotional image of the fan with the nine white male host back in 2017 was, in my opinion, a judgment error. And in hindsight, does Mr. Moore regret the decision of promoting that image of the fan? Thanks, Toronto Mike. It's a great question. And here's what I'll point to. Again, I go back to the example of

Justin Trudeau's cabinet. So much easier to have better diversity when you're starting fresh. And we started a new radio station in Vancouver, Sportsnet 650, when I was there. And I'm really, really proud of the amount of diversity on that channel, or that station, because we got to start fresh. Should the fan do a better job of trying to find great talent of diversity? Yes. Like you can't just all of a sudden get rid of Bob, get rid of the guys in the afternoon, get rid of the guys in the morning.

But Andrew Walker did leave for Vancouver. Yes. So there was an opportunity. There was an opportunity for sure. And I think, you think, looking in hindsight, should we have done a better job? Yeah. I think it falls under the creativity slot.

They probably have a lot of fear of alienating their core audience, which is white males. And as opposed to doing that, like I said before, you've got to push yourself to engage them as opposed to alienating them. And you know what?

As someone who's tried really hard to get into radio but just not gotten any reception there, and part of that I could say might be, now that I'm learning, because maybe someone sees my name in their email thread and is like, you're the Vanna White. No, you're probably not going to be good

at carrying a conversation. I am okay with being introduced, if I were to be, or a woman in the overnights. And I hope I'm not insulting other women, but I'm okay with that. First of all, if I were to be or a woman or in the overnights. And I hope I'm not insulting other women, but I'm okay with that. First of all, if I were to start, I have to earn my stripes in radio. It's very different than TV. You can't just expect to be on prime time because they need to fill, you know, or they want to introduce more diversity. I'm okay with that.

And let the listeners in slowly. And if you do a good job, which of course you are capable of, you don't have to be white male to do a fantastic job, then you start bringing that person on. Because everyone should pay their dues and everyone should pay their stripes. So whether I am a young or old white male trying to get in, then maybe I shouldn't start right away on primetime either. So if it's overnights or whenever you're not getting the most viewers. But is there overnights anymore? I mean or whenever you're not getting the most viewers. Is there overnights anymore?

I mean, wherever you won't get the most viewers. So I'm talking not the morning drive and not the afternoon drive. To that point, I mean, Merrick and Strombo and these guys come in. Makowitz, they come in. They talk about all this time they had in the middle of the night on the fan and how that's where they basically learned the craft

and they were terrible, but they got better. Those guys have done, they've done quite well for themselves. I always wonder, like now that we don't have, I don't think there is a late night vampire shift anymore on Toronto. There isn't, that's a budget issue. And that's part of the problem.

And the radio thing, and this is, again, not an excuse, but it's a reality. And I said, you only get what you measure. And both radio and the management side of sports are a little bit more invisible. And they're not necessarily held as accountable because it's not as obvious every day on radio that you have no people of color.

It's a little obvious if you don't have women because the voices are different. But it's not as noticeable. And the same thing with management. Just because it's invisible doesn't mean you shouldn't be doing it. And I think, again, I am conscious of time. I keep coming back to having this discussion in a non-confrontational way and making sure that we're opening hearts and minds, not only

of the people in power, but the people who are listening and watching to, as you say, accept people who are not the traditional voices and faces of sports. Another prep that I'll do, and I know you've got to go, Scott, but the other person that I talked to before this was Anson Henry. Anson is a Canadian track and field star, and I've had a bit of exposure to Anson at a track and field gig earlier this summer. I saw him strut into a meeting. I saw him on air, and I called him up, and I said, man, you stick out to me because you haven't changed. Is diversity enough? Or when we have diverse people on whether women or men or anybody, are you conforming? And I think that's also the next stage of being real on television and acceptance of who you are. And Anson said to me,

he said, man, I joke about it with my friends all the time. I am nothing like I am really because I have a fear of being myself. I just can't, not fear, but he used the words being uncomfortable, making people feel uncomfortable. Imagine a place where you could be yourself. The people that stick out to me are Ron and Don. They are themselves all the time. Iran and Don. They are themselves all the time. That's diverse. Like the way they are is gorgeous to me. If anybody new coming in doesn't have that fear of not being who they are, that would be a place. Yeah. And I want to just reference a conversation that Shirely and I had on the way in. And I think this is important too, because I don't think I'm alone in this. You know, I'm a 56, soon to be 57 year old white male who grew up in Toronto in the early sixties or early seventies.

And the comment I made at my going away party was that the, the sports media landscape looks too much like my neighborhood when I grew up in Toronto in the late 60s, because that's what Toronto was. And it was, uh, an all white men's club. Um, and we grew up as the, as the country and the city evolved, feeling a little guilty and uncomfortable with the conversation, uh, because we felt put upon and like it's somehow our fault. And to an extent, it is. But I had a guy working with me, and I will call him out because this was a great learning for me, a guy by the name of Jason Badal, who worked with me on my management team, who's a black man, who made it easy for me to talk about race. He would come into my office and make it not confrontational. And I think I learned more from him and you,

Shirely, about not feeling guilty and not feeling badly that I happened to be a middle-aged white guy and recognizing that the conversation is not only should it be comfortable to have and be natural to have, but it's important to have. Well said. Sophia, any final thoughts before? Well, first of all, I'm glad we can all, I'm glad that Shirely, that Scott, and that you

invited me to be on this panel so we can have this discussion. It is one of a few happening in and around our country, but I'm going to take a big takeaway from Shirely, which was to not be afraid to have those conversations while you're in them, as opposed to hindsight being 20-20. It's a learning lesson for sure for me, but that's a very good point,

that we should all have them while we're experiencing it and we have the power to do something about it. Can I just... Yes, of course. Before Shirely gets to us, I want to put out the challenge that I put out Yes, of course. I want to put out the challenge that I put out

at my goodbye party. And this has come from learning of watching Ron and Tara on Hometown Hockey and how great they've been

with First Nations. I want to see a First Nations sportscaster in Canada in the next five years. Cool. Hey, all you got to say

is if you don't know, now you know. Now you know. Cool. Hey, all you got to say is, if you don't know, now you know. Now you know. Shirely, Scott, Sophia, thank you so much for doing this. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Mike.

And that brings us to the end of our 407th show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. Shirely, you're at Shirely HNIC. Yes. Hockey Night in Canada, of courseirely, you're at Shirely H-N-I-C. Yes. Hockey Night in Canada, of course. Scott, you're Moore, Scott Moore. Not James Bond, Bond, James Bond.

And Sophia, can you spell your last name? It's S-Juriskovich. I'm not going to spell it, but if you type in Sophia and then J-U-R, I'll come up. So there you go. Promise? Yes, I promise. See you all next week and it won't go away Cause everything is rosy and green