News of former USA Today sports media critic Rudy Martzke’s passing spread quickly last week.
His son, Brett, announced his death on the X platform last Friday. USA Today reported that Martzke died of complications from pneumonia. He had contracted COVID in October.
Before Martzke’s columns, sports media coverage was spread among a few newspapers and magazines. Larry Stewart of the Los Angeles Times, Jack Craig of The Boston Globe—whose columns were picked up by The Sporting News—and William Taaffe of Sports Illustrated had either weekly or monthly sports media columns. But when Martzke started his columns in 1982, sports media became a viable and regular beat. Soon afterward, newspapers across the country had a regular sports media columnist.
“The Dreaded Glitch Award,” “The Hustle Award,” “Best Timing Award,” and “The Rudys.” These were some of the awards Martzke used to hand out in his regular columns in USA Today. In his heyday, the broadcast networks and ESPN would read his columns for his critiques. Through his writings, readers could tell who were his favorites (Bob Costas and Al Michaels) and those who were not (Jack Buck and Joe Garagiola). Martzke’s critics, and there were many, felt that he was trying to program certain networks.
The conventional wisdom with Martzke’s columns was that he could help raise the profile of a young broadcaster, but also destroy the reputation of an established announcer.
No matter what, Martzke’s Page 3 columns were essential to networks, especially on Mondays when he would review the previous weekend’s broadcasts. This was in a day and age before DVRs and TV cloud storage. He would use videotape recorders and his own memory to write extensive columns. He seemed to have access to every regional NFL game on Sundays, each college football game, and any sporting event that was televised by the major broadcast and cable networks.
His Rolodex was filled with phone numbers. Network public relations departments were on his speed dial and his columns were filled with quotes from ABC, CBS, and NBC firing shots at each other. He would get a quote from either someone in public relations, a producer, or an announcer, and then make the call to a rival network to get them to fire a retaliatory shot.
Rudy’s calls meant that something had caught his eye and he wanted a reaction not only from the network airing the event but also from competing networks. He seemed to enjoy playing networks off one another and when Fox Sports entered the sports media lexicon by gaining the rights to the NFL in 1994, it was another PR department he could call to get quotes.
As previously mentioned, Martzke did have his favorites. Bob Costas was one in particular and his connection to Martzke dates back to when both were with the Spirits of St. Louis of the American Basketball Association.
When Costas applied, Martzke, director of operations for the American Basketball Association team, listened to the demo tape and knew it was a hit.
Although the legendary narrative maintains Martzke made the call, here’s the deal, according to Costas: KMOX technically made the hire.
“I was referred by the team,” Costas clarified.
But while Costas was a favorite, the late Jack Buck who called the St. Louis Cardinals and Major League Baseball and NFL for CBS Sports and CBS Radio felt Martzke had it out for him. In his autobiography, That’s a Winner, Buck wrote that Martzke was partly responsible for him losing his job as main MLB announcer for CBS in 1991.
Martze had worked in St. Louis for the Spirits basketball team, and seemed to have it in for me right from the start. Every time he mentioned my name in his column, he indicated my age, as in Buck, 65.
He didn’t do that with other people and I thought he was implying that age was affecting my performance. It was a cheap shot, and I didn’t appreciate it.
Even though Martzke had his detractors from inside and outside sports television, his columns were always must-reads. Later, they were published on Mondays and Fridays, but industry insiders always read them. His columns were the first to publish the announcing assignments for NFL games.
He also dropped names of network executive producers like Michael Weisman of NBC Sports or Ted Shaker of CBS Sports who were not household names for home readers but were well-known inside network offices. Weisman told USA Today that because his name was always in Martzke’s columns, “Rudy made me a lot of money.”
His influence paved the way for regular sports media columns in newspapers and to the growth of sports media websites like Awful Announcing and The Big Lead, to current writers like Andrew Marchand and Richard Deitsch of The Athletic, and John Ourand of Puck.
Undoubtedly, the interest in sports media today is mainly due to Martzke’s coverage. The outpouring of tributes to him this weekend from announcers and former public relations flaks shows the respect he maintained in the halls of sports network offices.
There definitely won’t be another Rudy Martzke. Those of us who cover sports media raise a glass to his memory.
