Welcome to the home of the New Report, Old Report podcast, and the retired The Bridge Sports Podcast! My name is John Lund, a dynamic producer, broadcaster, podcaster, and sports writer that’s passionate about storytelling, audience engagement and high-quality content production featured on this website.
So, what is New Report, Old Report?
Myself and longtime sports radio caller Al Renauto bring a “new” and “old” perspective around the biggest storylines in the sports world in an hour-long show once a week.
And, what was The Bridge Sports Podcast?
Well, The Bridge is a sports podcast hosted and produced by John Lund that started with discussions around the happenings in the sports world and relevant topics applicable for comment or complaint. The show eventually evolved to a one-on-one format centered around interviewing reporters, journalists, broadcasters or former players in and around sports media to chat about how they got into the business.. not necessarily their “takes” on the sports world. Discussions take a deep dive into how that person got to where they are today.
Now, for more about me. I was a producer at SiriusXM for seven years, starting as a board-op on ACC Radio for three years before the pandemic started and playing the best music and drops in radio history. That led to running the board for Pac-12 Radio (RIP) for a year, then serving as lead producer for daily shows on Big 12 Radio, then SEC Radio and back to the stomping grounds on ACC Radio. The overall duties included managing end-to-end production while overseeing guest booking, content planning/development and real-time show direction to ensure seamless broadcasts. We dove into the timely topics, interviewed relevant guests and had a blast talking about a slew of personal stories to entertain listeners.
Before landing at SiriusXM, I worked as a sports editor for five years at the Wyoming County Press Examiner, a weekly newspaper. The sports section primarily covered local high school and collegiate sports and other relevant stories to listeners in the paper’s demographic. That included telling stories of an NFL assistant coach who was on the winning side of Super Bowl 48 with the Seattle Seahawks; a collegiate baseball player at the University of Virginia who finished runner-up in the College World Series and was drafted as the 38th pick in the MLB draft by the Cleveland Indians; and a high school swimmer who was named by USA TODAY as one of the Top 10 Most Influential High School Athletes of 2014.
I also ‘graduated’ from Bleacher Report’s Advanced Program in Sports Media, a 12-week program that basically puts applicants through the ringer of all the different types of content offered on the site. In 37 stories, I was read 2,036,667 times, and averaged a little more than 55,000 reads per story. The largest? NFL Preseason: Teams That Are Already in Trouble, with more than 900,000 readers.
Growing up, I fell in New York Yankees, thanks to my dad. It also helped that the Yankees won the World Series the first year I really took notice of them in 1996, and followed that up with three more championships in the next four years (and a heartbreaking loss in 2001). Seemed like a great choice! I was more of a bandwagoner in picking my other favorite teams in the late 90s. I started following the Lakers because of Shaq (and a three-peat!), Duke basketball because of Coach K (and a runner-up finish in ’99) and the Denver Broncos because John Elway beat Brett Favre in the Super Bowl (then won the title again the next year!). So yes, I do fall into the Yankees, Duke, and Lakers fan trope…but I’d argue the statute of limitations is in my favor after 25+ years of fandom lol.
In college at the University of Scranton, I began covering collegiate sports for the university newspaper, The Aquinas, where I would wrote for four years and was co-sports editor for the final two. My interest in radio started as an Alt-Rock DJ under the alter-ego of Lundin’ Bridge on several shows at almost every time slot you could imagine before becoming Station Manager for my final two years as well. I also created a sports talk radio show that was simulcast on the university television station. I managed to only wear a tie once. On top of that, I had many stints as the color commentary for the university’s women’s basketball team, the Lady Royals, for two seasons.
The inspiration for The Bridge podcast came with the hopes of getting a job in sports radio, and it worked! It took a lot of research on how to podcast (thanks, Pat), even more research on how to be creative, conduct interviews and entertain, and it was all worth it. Thanks for listening, and cheers!