My latest column for the National Sports Journalism Center at Indiana University is on a career transition for Bonnie Bernstein. After more than two decades as an on-air personality, she is relishing her new behind-the-scenes role in shaping Campus Insiders.
From the column:
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The calendar is turned, and Bonnie Bernstein is gearing up for a busy March. That’s nothing new for the long-time sideline reporter for CBS and ESPN.
Yet this won’t be the usual routine for Bernstein. She is taking a different view these days of “March Madness” and college sports.
Bernstein is an integral part of Campus Insiders. It is a new high-tech, high volume college sports site. Campus Insiders is a big money initiative of IMG and Silver Chalice, a business division of the Chicago White Sox. It has contributing reporters on virtually every campus; digital rights deals for games with several conferences; and partnerships with companies such as Cadillac.
Naturally, Bernstein is featured on the Chicago-based network. She hosted a daily show during the football season and will be doing interviews and other appearances during March Madness. CBS and Sports Illustrated’s Seth Davis also does a bi-weekly show for Campus Insiders.
Bernstein’s card, though, reads: vice-president of content and brand development/On-air host. While she is considered a primary face of the network, her primary role is behind the scenes.
Bernstein spends the bulk of her time on the marketing end, meeting with potential business partners. She also is heavily involved in the process guiding the content for Campus Insiders.
Now 43, Bernstein sought to do more with her career than to catch a few sound bites from a coach coming off the field. Not that’s there anything wrong sideline work, but there was a sense of been-there, done-that for her. She wanted more.
“When I hit 40, I remember thinking, it’s time to start thinking about 2.0, and what’s that going to look like, because I don’t want to just be talent the rest of my life,” Bernstein said. “Some people take the on air role and just run with it. It’s not that I don’t, I certainly do, and I always will. But I knew I wanted to start getting behind the camera.”
After more than two decades on TV, Bernstein actually feels she always has been better suited for this role. She insists she isn’t a make-up person and cracked, “I am the furthest thing from a fashionista that you will ever find.”
When countered that she always looks nice on TV, Bernstein said, “slap makeup on a pig, it’s still a pig.”
Again, you would get some dispute about Bernstein’s self-description, but here is her point.
“(The make-up and clothes are) not me,” Bernstein said. “This is my TV persona. When I’m sitting in these meetings and brainstorming about what our social media strategy should be, how we can tweak the show to make it more compelling to our target demographic, who do we want to go out and approach as sponsors and what’s our philosophy on approaching a sponsor…? All of these strategic conversations that I’m having, that’s so much more me than the chick you see on the air.”
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And there’s more from Bernstein in the rest of the column.