We recently connected with Matt Moscona and have shared our conversation below.

Matt, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Do you wish you had started sooner?

I always knew I wanted to be in media, but I started on a very different path than the one I’m currently on. I thought news would be my direction and I actually spent five years in News. During that time I had some amazing opportunities, including covering Hurricane Katrina and interviewing former president Clinton on election night, 2004. Still, what I found was that I hated doing. I accidentally fell into sports in 2007 and it has been a successful path for me. For many years, I regretted not starting in sports because I felt my time was wasted. What I have learned, though is those years helped shape me as a broadcaster and were truly invaluable. I think so often as young people we are in a race to get to the finish line. And that looks different for everyone. But patience is the most important lesson I have learned in my career.

Matt, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

For the last 14 years, I have hosted an award winning SportsTalk show in afternoon Drive, which is syndicated on ESPN affiliates throughout Louisiana. I’ve began my radio career in 2003 while I was a student at LSU after working in news talk for five years, I made the switch to Sports and it was the best decision I could’ve made.
Oddly, that switch happened by happenstance. I was planning to move to Atlanta when a job fell through. A sports radio program Director knew who I was and offered me a job as a board operator for two days a week. Because I was out of work, I took the job because it got my foot back in the door. As luck would have it, there was a weird gap in programming and the program Director asked me if I wanted to host a daily one hour show. It was during that time that I was scouted and eventually hired by my current employer.
Since launching After Further Review with Matt Moscona in February 2010, we have had almost any measure of success: ratings, revenue, awards. I am a 13 time Louisiana Association of Broadcasters award winner; i’ve been honored by Radio Ink Magazine as a top 30 local sports talk show in the country; Best of 225 winner; Baton Rouge Business Report 40 Under 40 and many others.
My show is the top revenue producing property for the company and we consistently win in booth, traditional ratings, and every digital metric.
While all of those things are wonderful and validating, nothing means more than when people stop me to tell me they listen every day and love spending part of their day with me. As cliché as it sounds, without an audience, the show doesn’t exist. I would just be a guy in a room talking to myself. In an era in which there have never been more options for people to consume content, the fact that they choose to spend their time listening to or watching my show is the most rewarding thing for me, professionally.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

In 2014, I became a father. My son was diagnosed prenatally with many severe, genetic abnormalities. In an effort to Give him the best chance of survival, my wife and I made the decision to transfer care to Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston. Specialists formulated a plan of care that would give Drew a fighting chance. We ended up spending nine months in the hospital. I continued to do my show from Houston during those months. I certainly learned the value of working for good people above anything else. My bosses never questioned anything. I missed around 50 shows that year, sometimes leaving in the middle of a show when we got bad news. All they ever told me is to do what I needed to do for my family.
Many people have told me how much they admired my continuing to work during that time, but honestly, it was a welcomed reprieve from the reality I faced every day, looking at my son in the hospital bed.
That time certainly taught me to prioritize life and business. You can chase money, but if you follow good management, the other blessings will come.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

This falls in line with patients being a priority. There were times when I would speak to aspiring broadcasters and tell them my story about switching from news to sports and how I felt like I had lost time. I would implore them to decide what they wanted to do professionally and make sure that every decision they made led them along that path. What terrible terrible advice!
It is never too late to pivot in your career. And my experiences as a newscaster have helped shape The broadcaster that I am today. I made relationships then and have mentors that I still rely on today.
While we are young is absolutely the time to try any and everything that interests us to find our best path.

Contact Info:

• Website: 1045espn.com
• Instagram: @mattmoscona
• Facebook: @mattmosconaafr
• Linkedin: @mattmoscona
• Twitter: @mattmoscona
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@MattMoscona?si=m5LZb-SVxJzTdyKv
• Other: https://youtube.com/@1045espn?si=kV7vQBDoVmp8Gwx6 https://youtube.com/@AFRSaints?si=wB2axx3iJBYFJdcb https://youtube.com/@AFRLSU?si=ldVSxGk8eQo_3bKL