Chuck Oliver, the Fan college football guru, gabs six hours a day on two different shows

On the other hand, Oliver said today over breakfast at Goldberg’sat the Battery near the Fan offices: “I can’t deal with Saran Wrap. Or those sheets with elastic corners.”

Fortunately, he gets paid to talk about the SEC and ACC, not how to wrap leftovers or make a bed. And he does it a lot. For 18 years, he has been gabbing away, first with the now defunct  790/The Zone and since 2008, with 680/93.7 The Fan with Matt Chernoff.

That show, which covers all relevant sports, typically runs from 3 to 7 p.m. But for two hours a day since 2014, he also does a solo show just about college football from noon to 2 p.m. on 40 radio stations regionally. Locally, that show is heard on 1340AM/WIFN-AM The Fan 3 and in replay on nights the Atlanta Braves are not playing at night on the Fan from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.

"He's always the smartest guy in the room," said Scott McFarlane, program and marketing director for the Fan. "I was in the studio the other day and he was watching a computer simulation of a game of the Astros from the 1970s."

I can't think of anybody else in Atlanta who does six hours of live radio a day. (Even workhorse Neal Boortz did only 4 and a half hours back in his heyday on WSB.) Oliver estimates he ends up working about 12 hours a day but for him, it's a joy and a pleasure.

“He’s got no kids which equals more energy,” noted his Fan co-host Chernoff in a text.

Credit: Rodney Ho

Credit: Rodney Ho

Better yet, his boss David Dickey said in its fourth year, Oliver's syndicated college football show is making money. (It helps, he noted, that they run the Atlanta Braves regional radio network as well.)

“I have great people working with me every day,” Oliver said. “It’s been gratifying getting good feedback from advertisers and affiliates.”

Oliver admitted it took about three years for him to get used to doing both shows, not that he’s complaining. Dickey told him to never forget that his primary mission is his Fan show and he has heeded that advice.

"I'm still chugging along," he said, noting that Bon Jovi found time back in the 1980s to do the "Young Guns" soundtrack. (Yes, that's a standard, oddball Oliver side reference.)

He was drawn to the Fan from the Zone in part because Dickey promised him a syndicated show. That wasn’t possible in 2008 but Dickey ultimately fulfilled his promise.

“Chuck exercised patience,” Dickey said. “Other things took priority. When the time came to put it all together, it became an overnight sensation seven years in the making.”

“It was on David’s time line,” Oliver said. “I’ve always loved working for David. He is not a knew-jerk reactionary. He will give you a chance to fail or succeed.”

Indeed, Dickey has always played the long game. For a time in the 2000s, 790/The Zone was beating the Fan in revenues but eventually, Dickey not only vanquished the Zone but also survived and thrived even in the face of an FM rival with a bigger signal 92.9/The Game. He hired several Zone alum, including their entire morning team, which featured former Zone owner Steak Shapiro, now on mornings on the Fan.

Oliver was one of his first hires away from the Zone a decade ago.

“Chuck’s always been very entrepreneurial in many ways,” Dickey said. “And he certainly recognizes his level of talent. I do, too.”

Oliver said sports talk mostly thrives when it’s local, so much so that even if the Falcons were to go 0-16, most fans would rather listen to him talk about them than the Dallas Cowboys or New England Patriots.

The reason he thought a regional talk show focused on SEC and ACC football would work is that most towns in the Southeast don’t have pro teams. College football, on the other hand, is a religion - so much so, there are fans who are willing to listen to him talk about the topic even during the off season.

“That is their local talk,” Oliver said. “And I have yet to have a day where I didn’t have four hours worth of material to talk about.”

That means, he will discuss recruiting, transfers, coaching changes, injuries and even access to games on TV or the Web. In a weird way, he enjoys the off season more because he can talk about almost anything.

So far, he has affiliates in Montgomery, Jacksonville, Nashville, Birmingham, Knoxville, Columbia, S.C. and Chattanooga, to name a few.

He said the more affiliates he has, the easier it is to sell to advertisers and it’s easier for him to get bigger name guests.

Dickey said Oliver presents college football “to Southerners as a Southerner.” He is from Atlanta and is an Auburn University grad.

“He has a lot of institutional knowledge,” Dickey said. “He stays on top of breaking news and maintains relationships with various coaches and tracks where they go. That’s a heck of a lot of work.”