NEW YORK – John Fanta has swapped microphones. He is standing in the hallway outside the press conference room at Madison Square Garden next to St. John’s head coach Rick Pitino. It is 10:24 p.m. Fanta has just finished calling the St. John’s-Georgetown game for NBC Peacock. Now he has grabbed Pitino for a quick hit for the Big East Digital Network. The two take a moment to get situated and then, click, the camera is rolling. And Fanta is on. “St. John’s comes back from 15 down to beat Georgetown 63-58…”
Truth is, Fanta is never really off. His day started at 8:00 a.m. and has been a nonstop avalanche of interviews, emails, phone calls, meetings and social media posts. He drank just one cup of coffee in the morning and somehow still exudes the energy of a man pumped full of caffeine.
At 29 years old, Fanta is one of the preeminent faces in the college basketball media, a modern-day Everyman who seems like he is everywhere. He commentates games for FOX, NBC and CBS Sports Network, writes columns for Foxsports.com, does video breakdowns and interviews for the Big East, hosts podcasts for The Field of 68 and constantly engages with his fast-growing fan base on social media. The clips he posts of himself walking through airport terminals and arena hallways as he dispenses opinions on all things hoop are widely consumed by his insatiable audience. His rants about his hometown Cleveland Browns are epic. When a Cincinnati fan dared to suggest during a Twitter Spaces chat that Fanta was biased towards Xavier, his hilarious outburst boomeranged around the internet. Fanta does not look or sound like anyone else in his industry, but that is what is fueling his success. His genuine excitement about the things he covers is both relatable and contagious. He makes it fun, but he also makes you care.
In the off-season, Fanta covers high school recruiting and the NBA Draft, as well as several other sports, including baseball, lacrosse and bowling. “I’ve come to love the bowling community,” he says. This past Saturday, he called a bowling event live from Delaware for FS1, a few hours after the network aired a recording of a different bowling event he called in Maine last September. This week, he will call five games in six days for three different networks. He’s off on Friday, regrettably.
Fanta has a very hard time saying no to new opportunities. Yes, he is incredibly driven and determined to keep climbing the ladder of success. But really, Fanta packs his schedule because he wants to. He says he could never work “a cubicle job.” The world of sports is his cubicle.
So, on a bitterly cold Tuesday night in New York City, there is nowhere Fanta would rather be than at MSG with a microphone in his hand and a Hall of Fame coach by his side. “There are challenges to this,” Fanta tells Hoops HQ. “There are long days and long nights. But it gets a lot easier when it comes naturally. It is my love.”
Fanta’s broadcasting career began at the age of three, when, as a young boy living in Cleveland, Ohio, he would turn on the TV and report the weather to his family. By six years old, after developing an obsession with Cleveland sports, he moved on to calling games. “It was the dream right away,” he says.
He was a uniquely extroverted kid, eager to chat with anyone who would lend an ear. In that way, he was very much an old soul. At First Communion parties, while all the other seven-year-olds were outside playing, John could be found holding court with the parents. “These kids would be in the backyard, on the playground or trampoline,” recalls Molly Fanta, John’s mom. “He would be in the kitchen, talking with all these adults about different teams and sports.”
One teacher told Molly that John was “certainly different.” She did not mean it as a compliment. But Fanta was never afraid to be himself, to travel wherever that gregarious nature steered him, even if it caused him to be picked on by classmates at times. He sang a solo of “Hallelujah” from the pulpit at mass, lifting his arms to invite others to join in. He performed in all the school musicals, often as the lead. He was Daddy Warbucks in Annie, Ugly in Honk!. In grade school, he read the morning announcements.
Of course, sports were also in the mix, even though Fanta was far from a superstar athlete. He stuck with football the longest, playing left guard on the freshman team at Saint Ignatius High School. When his season ended, his father, Gerry, encouraged him to sign up for another after-school activity. To find, as he put it to John, “a purpose.”
Fanta had always loved to talk about sports, which led him to Ignatius’ brand-new broadcasting network. The calendar had flipped to basketball season and the on-air positions were already filled, so he assumed the role of cameraman. At halftime of a junior varsity game, the play-by-play announcer suddenly decided to quit, leaving the head of the network scrambling for a replacement. Fanta was happy to step in. With no time to prepare, he nailed the gig.
Fanta played one more season of football before deciding his future was in the booth, not on the field. “I was a turnstile to my quarterback,” he says with a smile. “Quarterbacks feared for their lives when they entered the huddle and I had to block for them.”
On the airwaves, though, he was a natural. He called everything, from football, basketball and baseball to rugby, lacrosse and wrestling. As a junior, he was the voice of the football team’s memorable run to the state championship. All in all, he was involved in the production of over 200 broadcasts. There was no doubt that Fanta had found what he was meant to do. “This quote from Oprah Winfrey reminds me so much of John: ‘Follow your passion. It will lead you to your purpose,’” says Molly. When he was applying to college, Fanta looked only at schools with established broadcast programs. He considered Syracuse and Fordham, but Seton Hall won him over by guaranteeing that he could get on the air as a freshman. Before he left Cleveland for South Orange, Gerry told him, “It’s Big East basketball. It’s Madison Square Garden. You got a chance to get noticed there, kid.” And boy, was he right.
Rick Gentile first met Fanta at Allstate Arena in Rosemont, Illinois, during the 2014 Big East women’s basketball tournament. Fanta was a freshman at the time, covering the event for Seton Hall. Gentile, a veteran television producer and executive, had just been hired by the Big East to be its senior associate commissioner of broadcasting. The two spoke briefly prior to the games, with Fanta mostly picking Gentile’s brain about, well, everything.
A week later, they saw each other again at the men’s tournament at MSG, and Gentile offered to introduce Fanta to Bill Raftery and Gus Johnson. “I thought he was gonna explode,” Gentile recalls with a laugh. “I really thought he was going to die. And afterwards, he’s thanking me and thanking me and thanking me.”
Fanta told Gentile about all the things he was doing for Seton Hall, which included radio, video and editorial work. It was impressive, to say the least, and it was top of mind when the Big East was hiring correspondents to improve its local coverage not long after. Fanta was the perfect candidate. “As soon as he got the call, he was in the office in, like, three minutes,” Gentile says.
As he continued to establish himself, Fanta took every opportunity that came his way. He traveled across the country following Seton Hall’s men’s and women’s basketball, soccer, volleyball and baseball teams. In the summer before his senior year, he landed an internship at FOX Sports in Los Angeles. The company couldn’t cover lodging, so Fanta went on Airbnb and booked a hostel for $730 a month. He shared a room with a 60-year-old immigrant from Africa named George, who had moved to America in search of a better life.
Both the men’s and women’s basketball teams excelled during his time at Seton Hall, contributing both to his rise and his fondness for college hoops. The women, coached by Tony Bozzella, won a conference regular season title in 2015 and reached the NCAA Tournament in ’15 and ’16. Under Kevin Willard, the men also made the Big Dance twice and claimed the Big East tournament championship in 2015.
Upon graduating, Fanta was prepared to accept a position at a local affiliate in Midland, Texas, for around $35,000, but he preferred to stay at the Big East Network. He expressed that desire to Gentile, who carved out a full-time role. Within a few months, Fanta was hosting his own weekly hoops show, Big East Shootaround. By the following year, he was also doing play-by-play for FOX. His assignments have grown each season to the point where, a decade after he first shook hands with Raftery (and nearly exploded), the two are calling games together. Fanta has taken on more and more jobs for a variety of networks, crediting each for allowing him the freedom to do so.
In the early days, there were plenty of inconvenient and downright unpleasant (at least by others’ standards) gigs he worked for the Big East, but he didn’t complain once. According to his wife, Victoria Fanta, John never grumbles when he has to be up late to record a podcast or finish a story. On the contrary, “he complains if I try to get him to bed early,” Victoria says.
“If he wasn’t doing this, he would be writing a blog or he would have a podcast. He would be doing this unpaid and he’d be working just as hard at it,” adds Gentile. “Yes, he wants to be a success. He’s an ambitious kid. But that’s not the driving force. The driving force is that he just loves it.”
Among the people he covers, there is a clear respect for Fanta’s hustle. He has come up “the old-fashioned way,” Marquette head coach Shaka Smart says, without the automatic credibility afforded to former players. “There’s a quote that I sent out to our players this morning: ‘Work begins when you don’t like what you’re doing,’” Smart tells Hoops HQ. “One of the biggest things that stands out about John is that he doesn’t really come across like he’s working. He comes across like he’s loving what he’s doing.”
Fanta is having lunch at Ci Siamo, an Italian restaurant on the west side of Manhattan. He is technically off the clock — the suit has been swapped for more casual attire — but he is the same Fanta from your television, talking hoops and other subjects with the utmost excitement. He might as well be wearing a headset.
As Victoria attests, John is also this way at home. He wakes up with a smile on his face, often humming a tune. “He originally said to me when we first started dating, ‘What you see is what you get,’” Victoria says. “And I think that’s true through his broadcasting, his writing, everything. What you see about John is truly John, and I think that makes him so special and relatable for the fans.”
Ah, yes — the fans. Fanta has a lot of them these days. In fact, you would be hard pressed to find a media member with as high an approval rating. Much of that can be attributed to Fanta’s authenticity. His broadcasts are lighthearted, upbeat and fun, just as he is. In the past, there have been producers who have pushed him to be more serious. Others, like Gentile, have encouraged him to never change. The qualities that make him “different,” to quote his old disapproving teacher, are the same ones that have gotten him to this point. “He’s quirky, but not in a weird way,” Gentile says. “He’s got an overwhelming personality. He’s the most genuine person on Earth.”
Fanta’s ardent following first began to grow when he was at Seton Hall. Despite not joining a fraternity, he was welcome at any of the parties. During games, it is not unusual to see students holding up blown-up images of his face to distract opposing free throw shooters. As a professional, he has endeared himself to fellow broadcasters, writers, public relations reps, players, coaches and more. “He’s got a really good feel for people,” says Smart.
As his profile has risen, so, too, has the Fanta hive. He has reached a level of popularity on social media where some hate and negativity is unavoidable. There are occasional hurtful comments about his weight (Fanta says he is trying to eat healthier, staying away from fast food on the road and weaving more salads into his diet) or his high-pitched voice. None of it fazes him, however. He has been there before.
“I am who I am, unapologetically,” Fanta says. “I might not look like all the people that are on television, and I know that. But I embrace being the Midwestern native who’s a sports fan like you, who’s willing to have an everyday conversation, who has a good time calling the game… I would encourage anybody who feels like they need to be somebody different that you don’t need to be. You are who you are.”
After lunch, Fanta has a little over an hour to get ready and review his notes before he needs to be at MSG to call Georgetown-St. John’s for NBC. Tomorrow, he’ll be in the Big East studios to shoot a couple hits. Then he’ll host a “Spaces” in the afternoon and The Field of 68’s “After Dark” podcast at night.
It is a remarkable juggling act, but with support from Victoria, he manages to make it all work. They utilize a big blackboard in their kitchen as a calendar, which can be easily updated. John incorporates time for household chores and regular trips to the Jersey Shore with Victoria. The couple is expecting their first child, a baby boy, in May. John knows he will have to adjust his schedule, but he has already promised to take the night shift. “I won’t sleep in May now,” he jokes.
Given his motor, it is hard to imagine that Fanta ever sleeps and even harder to imagine him having a different career. “This energy could not be stuck in an office,” he says. He might not be built for a cubicle job, but Fanta will gladly call five games in six nights, or hop on a podcast at a moment’s notice, or stay up until 3:00 a.m. to knock out his latest Top 25 column.
Of course, he wouldn’t have it any other way. If work begins when you don’t like what you’re doing, then John Fanta has never worked a day in his life.
