Rudy Martzke

Joining us in the Huddle this week is Rudy Martzke. People may not have heard of Rudy unless you were a color commentator or play-by-play announcer for any major professional sport. Rudy had a long career with USA Today as their Sports Media Columnist and it was said that Martzke’s assessment of image-conscious networks could result in upgrades or downgrades of announcer assignments and even firings. Rudy’s columns were saliently placed, on page two or three of the popular sports section, not buried or clustered somewhere toward the end of it. They were almost bullet-point formatted, easy and quick reads.

He was so influential that he was voted one of the top 100 most influential people in sports and even voted higher than Michael Jordan for a few years. Some of his favorite announcers were John Madden, Jim Nantz, and Bob Costas. Rudy was actually the first in the industry to hire Bob Costas. Rudy was the Director of Operations for the Spirit of St. Louis of the ABA in 1974. He also worked for 3 other Pro Basketball organizations.

Rudy has been retired for a few years but after his time with USA Today, he started his own consulting company.

Gus Frerotte | 1/29/2021