Paul Finebaum - Recognition

Recognition

In 2002, Paul was named by The Tennessean in Nashville as one of the Southeastern Conference's Top Power Brokers. In July 2009, The Orlando Sentinel named Finebaum as one of the SEC's 10 most powerful people. On January 11, 2011, CNBC's Emmy-Award winning sports reporter, Darren Rovell wrote: `"ack 2 back titles by Alabama & Auburn make Finebaum the most powerful small market sports media member in the nation." Rovell added: "What makes Finebaum so good at what he does? He's the best listener of any sports talk radio host." In January 2012, The Bleacher Report named Finebaum one of the 25 Most Influential People in college football. He was one of only two members of the media listed, along with ESPN president John Skipper. In December, 2012, Sports Illustrated, in its year-end review of sports media, listed Finebaum among the top 10 "national radio voices." In February, 2013, the regional college football website, BunnSports.com, in a ranking of CFB's most influential follows on twitter, listed Finebaum at No. 1. bit.

In 2008, Columbia University named Finebaum's Show as one of the winners of its annual 'Let's Do it Better! Workshop on Journalism, Race and Ethnicity. Sponsored by the Ford Foundation, the award singles out newspaper, broadcast and web reporting that fosters coherent, authentic coverage of race reporting. Finebaum was selected for providing a strong and sometimes controversial view on racial issues in sports through his multi-media contributions that include the “Paul Finebaum Radio Network,” his Web site, Finebaum.com and a twice-weekly syndicated sports column. In particular, Columbia cited a poignant show on the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday - which highlighted the slain Civil Rights leaders still strong connections with today's sports stars - was among those submitted to the panel selecting the awards. Among Finebaum's written works noted included a column in the Mobile Press-Register on the first two black coaches in the bowl, the admission of NBA star that he was gay, a column on the University of Alabama snubbing of Sylvester Croom to be the first black football head coach in the SEC and a tribute to the late Grambling coach Eddie Robinson.

Reeves Wiedeman profiled the radio host in a 5,000 word profile in the December 10, 2012 edition of The New Yorker titled King of the South. According to the Wiedeman, it was The New Yorker's first major piece on a college football figure in more than 10 years. Several months later, on February 6, 2013, The Wall Street Journal, in a profile by writer Rachel Bachman, stated: "Paul Finebaum is not only one of the nation’s best-known sports-talk radio hosts. He is perhaps college football’s best-known voice since TV announcer Keith Jackson retired." The Journal ended the story, referring to Finebaum as "the Oprah Winfrey of college football." On March 6, Sports Illustrated's Richard Dietsch unveiled a ranking of the 20 Most Powerful People in Sports Media nationally and Finebaum came in at No. 16. Finebaum and Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic from ESPN (at No. 14) were the only radio hosts mentioned on the list.