EndorsementRadio.com

Some guys were born to do this.

Petros Papadakis is going to be a star. A national star. Yes, he’s fairly well known in the Los Angeles sports community and yes he reaches into pockets across the US through some syndicated radio and cable sports.

But that’s the tip of the iceberg for this cat.

Petros is going to be an empire, a machine, an industry. I’m not kidding. I’m glad I got to meet him yesterday because I think in a few years I’ll have to get through two handlers, a secretary, a PR spokeshole, and some beefy security to say hi to him as he gets into his limo.

Why? After all, he’s basically just a local sports talk radio host with some light syndication across the US. He’s also done some color commentary for football games and I believe he does the PA announcements at USC basketball games (Petros was a tailback for USC in the late 90s into 2000).

But he is magic. He’s so fun, so intelligent, so funny, so off-the-cuff, so charming that he captures a lot of my listening drive home. I think he could easily be as big as Jim Rome or Colin Cowherd some day. But here’s the thing: I think he’s bigger than sports. I think he could be a Carolla or even Stern (heck, maybe he’ll even figure out how to make centrist-politics work on the air instead of needing to be extreme left or right).

He can do sports, and he’s especially good at the college level – he filled in for Rome the day after Duke beat Butler for the NCAA basketball championship and I swear that first fifteen minutes was some of the best sports talk I’ve ever heard. He brought passion, he brought history and he brought humor. When he’s on a roll, it’s impossible to turn the channel.

But he’s much more than sports (and he’s not even much of an Xs and Os or numbers guy – he’s talking from his gut more than anything else). Petros can talk at length about movies, pop culture, all types of music, the Supreme Court, relationships, and English literature, his college major. And I’ll be honest, he’s actually more interesting to me when he is talking about non-sports topics. And he continues to bring the fire and the passion no matter what he’s talking about. He also takes big risks and, a la Charles Barkley, says what’s on his mind WHEN it’s on his mind.

In fact, I have friends who hate sports – hate everything to do with sports – and listen to Petros every day. I’m telling you – magic. You need to listen for yourselves.

What about radio endorsements? Does he bring it? Oh yes. I’ll need to find some examples and post them – but he gives probably the most passionate, knowledgeable read out there. I’m sure programming goes crazy on his live reads – because he’s always giving the client more than 60.

I need to shut up now, before my sales people read this and my rates increase.

Here’s the deal: Petros was born to do this – and his radio listeners and future radio listeners will sure be glad he was.

Here’s me with Petros after copious amounts of red meat.

Greek and Geek

Here’s a video of Petros being Petros. He’s an acquired taste for a lot of people – but that’s true of anything that stands the test of time.