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She is best known for her work on the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live (1997–2006) and for creating the comedy series 30 Rock (2006–2013, 2020) and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (2015–2020). It’s incredible to think about.Elizabeth Stamatina ' Tina' Fey ( / f eɪ/ born May 18, 1970) is an American actress, comedian, writer, producer, and playwright. I can’t tell you how happy and excited I am. This is what I’ve been trying to get to my whole career.

“And now there’s this opportunity I’ve been working towards, to work with a Bill Simmons company, it’s unbelievable. “At that time, I just thought it was a really cool compliment, to hear Bill Simmons say that. “When I heard that, I didn’t think that that meant they were interested in me or anything along those lines,” said Barrett. The hosts of the show excitedly noted Simmons’s praise the next time they were on the air. It was around that time Simmons made an offhand comment on his own podcast about how much he had enjoyed that WEEI weekend show, which included Barrett, Khari Thompson, and Nick “Fitzy” Stevens that day. It was the perfect topic in a situation like that, it didn’t get hot-takey, and it was really enjoyable.” I remember on one of those weekend shows, they had a debate about who was more important to the second of three Patriots Super Bowl champions, Gronk or Edelman. “One thing I noticed while scouting him is that some of his angles on slow sports days were really good. “Some of the opportunity for us is being there immediately when stuff happens, combined with the guests, combined with a host like Brian who is really smart about the Boston sports scene and has good angles and you can tell just “Or they’re not on after a huge Tuesday night Celtics game, right? They’ll dissect it the next day on the station’s best show, but not at 11 o’clock at night. “I think the advantage we have with the pods is the reaction time can be really fast, whereas in radio a lot of times their best people are not on after a Pats game,”’ said Simmons. That is perhaps the biggest advantage podcasts have over conventional sports radio. There’s also the opportunity to provide near-immediate quality content for an audience while it is still buzzing from a big game or event and interest is at a peak. “It’s just getting one thing and making sure that one hour is really, really good.” “I’m excited because this is going to allow me to focus on certain things, and you don’t have to focus on four hours of content,’’ said Barrett. The podcasts will be roughly an hour long, with Barrett doing an open before bringing in guests, which will include Simmons, O’Connor, and Ryen Russillo, all who have deep Boston roots. There also will be “emergency” podcasts when breaking news or a big story occurs. He backs up every point he makes with data, but not in a super-nerdy way.

The way he uses advanced metrics is really accessible and smart. He could do stuff by himself, which is really valuable to us, but he’s really good with guests, too. I was scouting everybody in Boston and he just kept jumping out. “Can it be somebody that I learn from? Can it be somebody who’s entertaining? Can it be somebody who can mesh with the right guests? “I really wanted to find the right person and somebody that put thought into their angles but didn’t do the kind of negative stuff just to stir the pot and get a reaction. “Obviously this is an important podcast for me because it’s all my teams in the city I care about,’’ said Simmons.

It’s a credit to Simmons, whose origin story began when he built his own audience as The Boston Sports Guy at the now-defunct Digital City site in the late ‘90s, for recognizing talent from afar in a relative upstart. He’s also the only sports radio host I can think of who uses analytics in an engaging way to enhance his opinions, such as pointing out that Franchy Cordero had an absurd 52 percent strikeout rate over a month’s time.īarrett was on the air often at WEEI, but his name recognition and profile were still in the fledgling stages. window the morning after the Patriots beat the Rams in Super Bowl LIII), and he’s proven to be entertaining and informative without having to dabble in that scourge of sports radio - insincere hot takes. The Peabody native and Syracuse graduate got plenty of reps in assorted time slots on WEEI since joining the station early in 2019 (his first show was in the 2-6 a.m. I can’t tell you how excited I am about it.”īarrett is not a household name in Boston media circles, but make no mistake, this is a terrific hire. “And now they’re asking me to come and work for them. I’ve known who Bill Simmons is for a long time … I grew up wanting to be in sports media,’’ said Barrett, 34. The intention is to have the podcast launched later this month, before the Patriots begin their season. Barrett gave his notice at WEEI Friday, and will be diving headlong into his new gig.

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