10 Questions with ... Bomani Jones

1. You didn't start out on a media-centric track, at least not in college or grad school... or did you? What led an economist to, first, writing about music and sports, and then into radio and TV? Was doing radio and TV always the plan, or did that come about a different way?

This was never a plan. My senior year of college, I got the bright idea I'd become a music critic. And I did do that eventually, but in 2000, I was grossly misinformed on how much money I could make doing that. I wasn't in a position to pay any bills in full, and I realized that three months after college graduation when I was stood up by a magazine owner I thought would give me enough work to live. That led to me, on two weeks notice, accepting a fellowship at Claremont Graduate University that fall, a couple of thousand miles from home. The plan from there was to become some sort of public intellectual. But I didn't even consider sportswriting until 2004, when Ralph Wiley walked me up to the editors at Page 2 at ESPN.com about doing one piece. I kept that going and it led to what I've been doing.

2. It's interesting that "The Right Time" is now a podcast, because you've been doing new media -- podcasting, streaming, satellite, web writing -- for a long time, longer than most people. What differences are there in how you approach doing a podcast versus how you approached a daily radio show? What are the benefits and drawbacks, if any, of doing the show as a podcast?

The biggest positive of the podcast is the flexibility of it. We are not wedded to any particular topic or timing. The show can morph into whatever we need it to be, where a national radio show has to serve many disparate groups and interests. Because we're not trying to hold the attention of some theoretical sports fan scanning the dial, we can do more topics and approach them with a different depth. The drawback is the particular energy listeners get from listening to something live, from them knowing this is happening in real time. Trying to capture that excitement is going to be the hardest thing to do in the new format.

3. You've taught in college, and I don't need to tell you what the business is like right now. What do you tell students about whether to pursue a career doing this? Are you optimistic that the business will still allow people to make a living in, say, ten years?

I tell students the same thing about pursuing journalism as I always have -- don't major in journalism. The industry has a totally different structure than it did when I started writing, and that was a time when the game didn't look very much like it had 10 years before that. Being flexible enough to adjust to the industry is more important than learning "how to be a journalist" in school. Build your mind so you can know the best way to handle those changes. You'll pick up the vocational skills you need while doing the job.

4. As a writer and commentator, you're not known, as with a Woj or Zach Lowe for the NBA or Adam Schefter for the NFL or you get the idea, for covering a single sport -- you're more of a generalist. But are there sports that you consider your strong suit and others you feel a little weaker about? If you can rank the major sports in order of your knowledge and interest in them, what would be the order?

I would say my strongest suits are NBA basketball and college football. NFL would probably come after that. I put NBA basketball on top because I probably understand basketball better than any other sport. College football comes next because I know the crazy world surrounding the games, from boosters to the wacky world of university politics. The wackiness of college football is probably my favorite thing to discuss. I know plenty about the NFL, but I probably have more blind spots there that require me to defer to the knowledge of others.

5. Who have been your influences, inspirations, and/or mentors in the business?

The late Ralph Wiley is at the top of this list. No one was better to me in this game, and everything I have comes from his initial faith in me. Obviously, Dan Le Batard is high on this list, along with Erik Rydholm. Then there are countless editors, producers and guest bookers who took chances on me and helped make me better, especially a gentleman named Michael Knisley, the best editor anyone could ever hope for.

6. You do a podcast. You do a daily interactive web video. You're doing a highly mysterious TV project with Pablo S. Torre. You do guest shots on other shows like "Around the Horn" and visits back to Le Batard's show. And you engage with everyone on social media on what appears to be an around-the-clock basis. Resisting the temptation to ask if you even bother to try to get sleep, I'll ask if you consider yourself a workaholic or whether work is enjoyable enough not to feel like you're laboring 24/7.

I have been a workaholic, though I'm trying to be less of one. From 2000 until now, my life has been centered around making better work. It's not something I'd necessarily recommend, but it's had obvious benefits. But the last couple of years, I've unchained myself a bit from the computer to try to spend more time just living. But I couldn't have done this like I have if I didn't love it. My curiosity about these topics hasn't waned. My enjoyment of sports remains. The work has been hard, but it hasn't felt like a chore, and that last part is important if one wishes to be energetic about what he or she produces.

7. Of what are you most proud?

That I'm still here. I got let go from every job I ever had, for one reason or another, until I got back to ESPN full-time in 2013. I've been mistreated by some bosses and humiliated by others. I've flunked out of grad school and lost what I thought was my dream job. I've been successful and had the rug pulled out from under me because of business concerns that had nothing to do with me or my work. And I managed to find a way to emerge stronger from every setback. The part of my story that I can share most easily is that which speaks to the resilience required to keep going through all of that.

8. I was going to ask about something you said just this week on Twitter in an argument about ESPN's Top 100 most influential NBA players, telling Kobe and A.I. fans complaining about their rankings that "the NBA didn't start in 1996." But that led me not just to think about Wilt and Russell and even George Mikan but about something going in the other direction: eSports. ESPN and Fox are on that train, NBA teams are buying "franchises" in eSports leagues, and you know how pro athletes in other sports are playing video games online at all hours (the Ben Simmons-Karl Anthony Towns exchange being a perfect illustration). And much has been written about the youngest generations being raised not to be sports fans but to be gamers and into watching others compete on Twitch. So, prognosticator's hat on: Do you see eSports as ever becoming dominant, as a rival to the Big 4 North American sports, or will the appeal of watching someone else's Call of Duty or Fortnite run fade? (TL;DR: Are eSports spectator sports in the NBA/NFL/MLB/NHL sense?)

I guess it's a spectator sport if someone is wiling to watch it, and it seems people are willing to watch eSports. Now, will it challenge traditional sports? But I think part of the appeal of watching pro sports is aspirational. We marvel at what athletes can do and often put ourselves in the place where we dreamed we could do such things. There's a participatory element to that also, as most of us have participated in these activities and know we could never be that good. I'm not sure what it would say if the masses viewed playing video games through the same lens through which they view participating in physical activity in a way that doesn't require much real-life human interaction.

9. Fill in the blank: I can't make it through the day without _____________.

...laughing. By and large, I'm here for the jokes. They feel better than just about anything else.

10. What's the best advice you ever got in the business (and who gave it to you)?

This takes us back to Ralph Wiley. I once sent him a piece that had a reference that I don't remember now, but was a bit hyperbolic. He told me, "you seem to be a master of overstatement. I prefer to be a master of understatement. But whatever you do, be a master of something."