There are radio stations that talk endlessly about developing talent, and then there are radio stations that eventually have to prove they actually mean it. 102.5 The Game in Nashville is doing the latter, turning its midday show Next Man Up over to Connor Nute and Nick Frazier after Jake Lyman’s departure for Virginia Tech. This is not a couple of outside names parachuting into Music City with polished demos and new headshots. These are two people who have already been doing the work inside the building, learning the market, filling in, producing, covering games and waiting for somebody to finally say the most important words in radio development.
THE SHOW IS YOURS
That matters.
A lot.
Because radio spends far too much time asking where the next generation is while standing directly in front of the next generation.
THIS IS WHAT DEVELOPING TALENT ACTUALLY LOOKS LIKE
Connor Nute did not walk into 102.5 The Game yesterday.
He has been part of the station’s ecosystem for years.
Intern.
Highlight production.
Live-show production.
Weekend hosting.
Local sports coverage.
Fill-in work.
The kind of stuff broadcasters used to call learning the business before everybody decided every employee needed seventeen job titles and a Canva password.
😂
And Nick Frazier is not some stranger either.
The station’s own staff page already identifies him as both a show host and producer, and The Game has regularly used Frazier on local coverage outside the daily studio grind.
This spring, Frazier and Nute were paired together for part of the station’s NFL Draft coverage in Nashville.
That is not random.
That is reps.
That is chemistry testing.
That is finding out whether two people can make radio together before you hand them three hours every weekday.
AND HERE COMES THE BEAUTIFUL PART
Nute started as an intern.
Let me say that again.
AN INTERN
Now he gets a daily weekday show.
This is what every station group in America claims it wants.
Develop young talent.
Create opportunity.
Build from within.
Let people grow.
Fine.
Here you go.
This is what it looks like.
It is not glamorous.
It starts with crappy hours.
Production.
Highlights.
Weekends.
Fill-ins.
Being around.
Being prepared when somebody gets sick.
Knowing how the board works.
Knowing what not to say when the mic is hot.
Knowing Nashville well enough that you do not need somebody to explain why everybody is suddenly yelling about the Titans on Monday morning.
That is development.
NASHVILLE IS A GREAT MARKET TO LEARN SPORTS RADIO THE HARD WAY
Because this market does not give you one easy team and tell you to talk about it for four hours.
You have the Titans.
Predators.
Vanderbilt.
Tennessee.
Nashville SC.
Middle Tennessee.
High school football.
College football everywhere.
SEC culture pouring into almost every conversation.
And approximately 400 people willing to tell you your quarterback opinion is stupid before 9:17 a.m.
😂
That is fertile ground for young sports-talk hosts.
If you can survive Nashville sports radio, you are learning how to juggle audiences with very different allegiances at the same time.
AND 102.5 THE GAME HAS BEEN PUTTING THESE GUYS INTO THE MARKET
This is the local angle I really like.
Nute has been part of the station’s Game Blitz coverage around Metro Nashville high school football, while Frazier has worked the sideline on the station’s Metro Game of the Week coverage.
That matters.
You want to build a local host?
Put them around local sports.
Not just NFL Twitter.
Not just whatever Stephen A said.
Not just the national sports cycle.
Go to Cane Ridge.
Go to Antioch.
Go to Pearl-Cohn.
Go to East Nashville.
Talk to coaches.
Talk to parents.
Talk to players.
Learn the city.
That is how somebody stops being a guy on sports radio and becomes a Nashville sports-radio personality.
There is a difference.
NEXT MAN UP IS ALMOST TOO PERFECT A NAME NOW
Come on.
You cannot write this better.
Jake Lyman leaves.
Two people from inside the building step forward.
The show is called Next Man Up.
😂
The damn branding department does not even have to work this week.
The entire philosophy is already sitting in the title.
Lyman moves on.
Nute and Frazier move in.
Next man up.
Or in this case:
NEXT TWO MEN UP
AND JAKE LYMAN IS NOT LEAVING FOR SOME RANDOM JOB
This is important too.
Lyman is heading back to Virginia Tech, where he is becoming Assistant Director of Broadcasting for the Virginia Tech Sports Network. His responsibilities include play-by-play for women’s basketball and baseball, digital content, podcast work and involvement in the network’s day-to-day operation.
That is a real career move.
He is going home to his alma mater.
He graduated from Virginia Tech’s Sports Media and Analytics program in 2022.
He had already been doing Vanderbilt women’s basketball in Nashville and selected Nashville Sounds baseball broadcasts.
Now he gets a larger role inside an athletic department where he already has history.
That is not leaving radio.
That is career progression.
And frankly, this entire story becomes healthier when you look at it that way.
One broadcaster moves forward.
Two more move forward behind him.
That is how the pipeline is supposed to work.
RADIO USED TO DO THIS CONSTANTLY
We forget.
Somebody produced nights.
Then hosted weekends.
Then moved to overnights.
Then nights.
Then afternoons.
Then maybe mornings.
Somebody else became APD.
Then PD.
Somebody left for a bigger market.
Someone underneath them moved up.
That was the system.
You created broadcasters by allowing broadcasters to broadcast.
Wild concept.
😂
Then the industry spent two decades removing training grounds and eventually started asking:
WHERE DID ALL THE TALENT GO
Well…
You fired nights.
Automated weekends.
Syndicated mornings.
Eliminated producers.
Combined jobs.
Then wondered why nobody knew how to host.
THIS IS WHY I LIKE THIS MOVE
Nute and Frazier have already been learning.
Now the station has to let them become something.
Do not overprotect them.
Do not polish every weird edge off.
Do not make them sound like every other sports show.
Let them argue.
Let them be wrong.
Let them get better.
Let them discover what they are together.
Chemistry does not arrive fully assembled.
It develops.
AND NASHVILLE WILL LET THEM KNOW QUICKLY IF IT SUCKS
😂
Sports listeners are incredibly helpful like that.
They do not quietly dislike you.
They call.
They text.
They post.
They tell you.
Sometimes repeatedly.
Sometimes in language that would make your grandmother require prayer afterward.
That is feedback.
Use it.
THE GAME ALREADY HAS A STRONG LOCAL BENCH
Look around the station.
Robby Stanley.
Joe Rexrode.
Big Joe.
Derrick Mason.
Adam Vingan.
Willy Daunic.
Chase McCabe.
Paul Kuharsky contributing.
This is not a lineup built entirely out of generic national feeds. The station’s current staff structure is heavily tied into Nashville sports personalities and local coverage.
That environment matters for two younger hosts.
You are not learning sports radio in isolation.
You are surrounded by people who have done it.
Watch.
Listen.
Ask questions.
Steal techniques.
Do not steal bits.
😂
Learn.
AND FOLKS THIS IS WHY LOCAL SPORTS RADIO STILL HAS A FUTURE
Because national sports content is everywhere.
Absolutely everywhere.
If I want somebody yelling about the Cowboys right now, I can find approximately 900 people doing it before I finish typing this sentence.
What I cannot get as easily is:
What is happening with the Titans today?
What is Nashville saying about the Predators?
What does somebody who has actually been around Vanderbilt think?
What happened Friday night in Metro high school football?
What is the conversation in this city?
That is the product.
LOCAL SPORTS RADIO IS NOT JUST SPORTS
It is geography.
AND THESE TWO HAVE BEEN LEARNING THE GEOGRAPHY
That is why promoting from within makes sense here.
Nute and Frazier already know the building.
They know the teams.
They know the station.
They know the people.
They know what stories move Nashville.
They know which callers are going to call no matter what.
Every station has those.
😂
They know what they are walking into.
That shortens the learning curve considerably.
BUT DO NOT MAKE THE MISTAKE OF EXPECTING THEM TO BE JAKE
This is another thing radio gets wrong.
When a host leaves, the replacement should not be ordered to recreate the former host.
Lyman had his style.
His rhythm.
His relationships.
His opinions.
His delivery.
Good.
Let him take those things to Blacksburg.
Nute and Frazier need their own show.
Same title?
Fine.
Same time?
Fine.
But different people need a different sound.
THAT IS THE WHOLE POINT OF DEVELOPMENT
You do not develop talent so they can impersonate somebody else.
You develop talent so they become themselves.
That is where personality comes from.
And sports radio lives or dies on personality.
Facts are free.
Scores are free.
Highlights are free.
Stats are free.
The internet will give me every Titans stat imaginable before these guys finish their open.
What I need them for is:
WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT IT
And better yet:
WHY SHOULD I CARE WHAT YOU THINK
That relationship takes time.
THE 9 TO NOON WINDOW MATTERS
This is not some Saturday night audition anymore.
Next Man Up sits weekdays from 9 a.m. to noon on The Game’s current schedule.
That is real weekday real estate.
Morning reaction is still fresh.
Breaking news can happen.
Practice news starts developing.
The Titans conversation evolves.
College football discussion gets moving.
Predators news hits.
It is an important bridge between the morning show and the station’s afternoon lineup.
Now Nute and Frazier own it.
That is a substantial vote of confidence.
ON THE DIAL PERSPECTIVE
This is one of those personnel moves I want radio executives to actually study instead of simply reading the headline.
An intern came into the building.
He stayed.
He learned.
He produced.
He hosted weekends.
He filled in.
He did local sports coverage.
Another producer and host worked alongside him.
The station gave both of them meaningful assignments.
The incumbent host got a bigger career opportunity.
And instead of immediately searching outside the building for somebody with a bigger social following…
THEY LOOKED DOWN THE HALL
That is how you create a bench.
EVERY RADIO STATION NEEDS A BENCH
Not just sports stations.
Every station.
Who is next?
Who can host if somebody leaves?
Who can program if somebody gets promoted?
Who can produce?
Who can report?
Who can take a weekend shift?
Who is learning?
If your answer is:
WE WILL POST THE JOB WHEN SOMEBODY QUITS
you do not have a talent-development strategy.
You have Indeed.
😂
AND SOMEBODY AT 102.5 THE GAME DESERVES CREDIT FOR THIS
Because talent development requires patience.
You need to let somebody work through the ugly part.
The first terrible aircheck.
The first awkward interview.
The first joke nobody laughs at.
The first show where every topic dies in twelve minutes and you still have two hours and forty-eight minutes left.
That is where broadcasters are made.
Nobody emerges from college ready to do three hours every day.
You get good by doing it.
NOW NUTE AND FRAZIER GET THE REPS
Five days a week.
Three hours.
Nashville.
Titans season.
Predators.
College football.
SEC arguments.
Vanderbilt.
Local sports.
Phones.
Breaking news.
Bad takes.
Good takes.
Monday morning quarterbacking.
Friday predictions they will absolutely pretend never happened on Monday.
😂
That’s sports radio.
AND JAKE LYMAN GETS HIS OWN FULL CIRCLE STORY
Virginia Tech says Lyman will call Hokies women’s basketball and baseball while helping with the Sports Network’s broader operation, digital content and podcasts.
A Virginia Tech graduate returns to Blacksburg as a professional broadcaster.
That is a hell of a next move too.
This is not a story where somebody has to lose.
Jake wins.
Connor wins.
Nick wins.
102.5 The Game keeps continuity.
Virginia Tech gets somebody who already knows the place.
Everybody moves.
THE SHOW IS CALLED NEXT MAN UP
And somehow, for once, radio actually followed its own slogan.
The host leaves.
The people behind him step forward.
The intern becomes the host.
The producer becomes the host.
The understudies walk onto the stage.
That is not just clever branding.
That is what a healthy radio station should look like.
So Monday morning, Connor Nute and Nick Frazier sit down behind those microphones with three hours in front of them and no more phrase more dangerous than:
YOU ARE THE FULL TIME HOSTS NOW
Have fun, gentlemen.
Argue.
Laugh.
Screw something up.
Fix it.
Talk Nashville sports.
Learn every day.
And remember exactly how you got there.
Because somewhere else in that building right now there is probably another intern watching you and thinking:
THAT COULD BE ME
Good.
It should be.
That is how this damn business survives.
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