Best of B Team: Ad Libbing Live: Jon Williams on Handling 20,000 Fans

Live entertainment looks effortless until you are the one standing in the center of a stadium with twenty thousand people watching you. The difference between a seamless fan experience and an absolute disaster class in front of a packed arena comes down to split-second ad-libbing. Whether it is managing a corporate-sponsored game on the court or keeping a crowd engaged during a timeout, live media requires a distinct level of comfort with chaos. Today the B Team sits down with Northwest Arkansas media staple Jon Williams to unpack what it really takes to hold the microphone for major regional events and the Arkansas Razorbacks.

We get into the reality of working under modern fan engagement strategies implemented by forward-thinking athletic directors. Jon shares the logistics behind parallel media careers, balancing corporate partner obligations for heavy-hitters like Whataburger and Zips Car Wash against his own independent projects. We cover the cognitive dissonance that happens when regular people try to play simple games like mid-court tic-tac-toe under stadium lights, alongside the exact division of labor required to keep a local radio show thriving for two decades. Jon details his specific philosophy on separating backend station imaging from frontend advertising sales to ensure long-term business harmony.

The unglamorous truth of regional broadcasting is that public failure is part of the job description. Jon opens up about the universal experience of athletic performance anxiety, sharing hilarious personal history about choking on legendary courts from high school gymnasiums to Madison Square Garden. Navigating a thirty-two-year career in the public eye means learning how to roll with the unpredictable nature of live audiences, uncooperative contestants, and the high-stakes pressure of representing major university brands. Listeners will walk away with a grounded perspective on true professional collaboration and a reminder that even seasoned veterans have hit the bottom of the backboard.

Transcript

Welcome And Cast Introductions

SPEAKER_01 0:11

Welcome to the B Team Podcast. I am your host, Josh Stafford, with my co-host, at Mars, and our permanent guest, Rob Nelson. We're here every week to talk to you about all things Bettonville, urban, and business. The B Team Podcast. Be here. Let's formally introduce you before we get into all of the amazing content we're gonna you're gonna deliver for us today.

SPEAKER_00 0:31

I mean, Northwest Arkansas knows us, but we don't know if they know.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

They don't know

Meet John Williams And His Roles

SPEAKER_01 0:35

who you are. I mean, everybody knows the B team. I mean, we're gonna introduce you to the world today, John. This is a big day.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

We're releasing. You're groansed up and you're groansed up and you're groansed up.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

What world? This is John Williams, half of John and Deke.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 0:50

The the MC of pretty much every charity event in the region that is worth right, worth the year.

SPEAKER_00 0:55

I believe I have MC'd quite literally every uh nonprofit event in Northwest Arkansas the last 30 years.

SPEAKER_01 1:01

And the voice of the Razorbacks.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

Yes. Um, I'm I I still can't believe it every day that I get to do what I get to do with the Razorbacks. It's an absolute blessing. And uh I love it. And when I have to give credit where credit's due because Hunter Jurichek is the one who wanted to really implement having fan engagement with MCs on the court and on the field. And when he uh took over from the previous regime, uh that was something he implemented. And so I've been the on-court MC for men's basketball and for football. For this is this will be going on my eighth year.

SPEAKER_01 1:34

Did you have to interview for this?

SPEAKER_00 1:35

Oh no. They came and they pretty much told me that you're this is what you're gonna do. Uh you're gonna go down there, we're gonna be cute cards, and you're gonna do stuff where not only are you interacting with the fans, we're gonna have it where it's all you know sponsored with our partners like Whataburger and and and all that. And it's a it's a blast. I'll have a great time. Well, that's that's the Razorback side. That was good though. That and it's funny because with what I do with the Razorbacks, it's all there's all partners and everything they do, whether it's zips car wash, whataburger, or whatever I'm doing. Yeah, and all the plugs in today. But that's for the Razorbacks. I don't see a dime of any of that. Uh but

How Razorbacks Game Bits Work

SPEAKER_00 2:10

I've got my own show and what I do with Deke, where we have our own partners, and and so yeah, it's like parallel lives I have with like different uh uh genres and different partners and things like that.

SPEAKER_01 2:21

So let's stay on the razorbacks for a little bit. Um do you script out your own stuff? Like what how do you what how do you decide what you're gonna do during each game?

SPEAKER_00 2:30

Well, the games I MC where I'm on the court and on the field, it's very scripted. Um the everything is done through elements, whether it's the Coca-Cola t-shirt toss or uh, you know, like the horror. We'll get into Whataburger Tic-Tac-Toe. I'm gonna tell you. You know, tic-tac-toe seems like a really easy game until you get on the floor of Bud Walton Arena and you're having to make layups and then run to mid-court and put your ex somewhere at some point between what normal people do for tic-tac-toe and then what people do on Bud Walton Arena floor. I don't know where the disconnect or the cognitive dissonance is, but it just absolutely goes haywire.

SPEAKER_01 3:11

And nothing better than when somebody's supposed to block that and they're not paying attention.

SPEAKER_00 3:16

Why do people not immediately go to the middle square? Like what that's just that's just uh one-on-one. Yeah. And they don't, they never do. They always go to one of the sides or the corners and immediately go, here we go. This is where this is this is where it screws up. And so that's all, I mean, obviously, that is ad-libbed within the confines of the prepared bit where they tell you that you've got 16 to 90 seconds to get these, you know, two people out there to play tic-tac-toe or a half-court shot, or guess what the fries are hiding in which box or whatever. That stuff is ad-libbed, but for the most part, it's all within, you know, the the columns of making sure the partners are are taken care of. Yeah. And when you pick the people to come out, again, do you do that? Oh, absolutely not.

SPEAKER_01 4:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 4:04

Uh, they try to find younger people for like the easier games, but for they'll never get in. No. No, no, no. I mean, when I mean younger people, I'm talking, you know, like grade school and stuff like that. Um, and that's the unpredictable part of it, is like you'll think that the these games are easy, like tic-tac-toe. Once you're doing them in front of about 20,000 people, you'll find they are not easy. And then you have to basically roll with it. And that's that's I think that's why they hired me, is because

Stage Fright Stories From The Court

SPEAKER_00 4:30

that's all I've done for 32 years is add lib and do stuff uh off the top of my head with Deke and things like that. And it's a blast. I can't again, I'm so blessed to be able to do it. I love it.

SPEAKER_01 4:42

I got called down when I was probably 22, 23. I got called on Madison Square Garden to go shoot. And Madison Square Garden, I mean, it's like celebrity role, like all around. What year was this? Oh, it had to be 99.

SPEAKER_00 4:56

Was it Knicks or Rangers?

SPEAKER_01 4:57

New York Knicks. Okay. They called me down to do some shooting contest. And I was a decent basketball player, and I looked around and I'm like, my legs were so.

SPEAKER_00 5:05

You forget everything you ever learned about basketball.

SPEAKER_01 5:09

They booed me. I went back to my seats, and my friends were laughing at me so bad. Like, I thought you were good at basketball. Yeah, it's it's nervous. You forget all your mechanics.

SPEAKER_00 5:18

You forget everything you ever knew. Your elbow doesn't stay in, nothing happens that's supposed to happen. I did the same thing in high school. I was really good at basketball, and I we pooled our money and they had raffles, and then uh they would pull a ticket. And then if you made the shot, you get all the money. And if you don't, then they keep the money and they know you're not gonna make the shot because you're gonna joke. Uh, and so I told all my friends, I'm like, guys, let's do all do this. And if any of you get the ticket, I'll shoot the free throw. Because man, I'm like 90%. I'm a lock. And sure enough, one of my friends got the ticket. They go, John, get out there. And I mean, I didn't airball it, but I completely missed the room. I hit like the gray. Oh, it's uh the little rubber bumper underneath. 35 years later, I hear about it. And uh exactly, I hit the rubber bumper on the bottom of the of the. Is there video this somewhere we can get? Thank God no, because I was in high school in like the Civil War era before that. There is nothing, thank God. And so then, like about a month later, I begged him. I go, let's do it again, I'll

Building A Long Running Radio Partnership

SPEAKER_00 6:15

make it. And didn't make it. No one ever talks about that. It's always the absolute disaster class of a free throw I shot.

SPEAKER_01 6:22

Because there's no proof that you made it either.

SPEAKER_00 6:23

So let's go to the radio show. So you you would D, how many years together now? It'll be 20. Uh, that he and I have been doing a show together, November 3rd, 2005. Uh, was our first show together on uh 93 through the Eagle. And um, he's been my guy uh 20 years.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

And uh never an argument, of course, right, Allah?

SPEAKER_00 6:42

You know what? We don't. Uh, and I'll tell you why. We don't argue because we have such diverse skill sets. Uh, we have completely different uh things that we uh tackle in having our show be what it is. He is in charge of all the imaging. So when you hear the liners and you hear everything like, you know, 94-9 Radio John D, that's all he produces those. He is the one who by and large picks the music, uh the music that you hear on there. It is something that we wanted to kind of sound like KBCO uh in Denver, which is a station is called World Class Rock 97.3 KBCO. That's kind of our model for our station because there's nothing like it around Northwest Arkansas. And so he's in charge of the music, the imaging. Um I am in charge of the sales. I I get all the partners, I I do all the advertising, um, and that's what I do. And uh it works out really well. It's it's been something from that standpoint we've been doing for about 14 years.