Damon Bruce

Damon Bruce is the current host of KNBR's long-running Sportsphone 680, which broadcasts from the San Francisco, California, in KNBR's downtown studio. The show is 7-10 PM Pacific Time, or after the game that night. Bruce has been the host since October 2005.

Along with his hosting duties on Sportsphone 680, Damon Bruce is also the post-game host of the San Francisco Giants, San Francisco 49ers, and the Golden State Warriors. He does his Giants postgame shows from "the bunker", live inside AT&T Park, the Giants stadium.Although he covers the Giants, he is a Chicago Cubs fan.

Career

Damon attented Linton High School in Schenectady, New York, the same school as Pat Riley. A graduate of Indiana University with a degree in broadcasting, Bruce spent one year at KNBR as a producer of KNBR talk shows and sporting events before leaving to be a host on Sports Overnight America, then with ESPN Radio as a network sports anchor. While at ESPN, he hosted SportsCenter for ESPN International. Later, he was a fill-in host on Fox Sports Radio and Sporting News Radio. Before rejoining KNBR, Bruce was a morning anchor at WOWO news talk radio in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Bruce is also the play-by-play voice for the highly successful video game, "The Bigs", released in June of 2007 by 2K-Sports.

Catchphrases & Segments

Damon's catchphrase on the show is a soundbite of a Spanish-speaking baseball broadcaster's interjection of "oy oy oy!!!". He typically plays the soundbite when a caller makes a good point (usually a complimentary one) about the team or subject at hand, to great comedic effect. Many callers seem to call in to see if they can elicit an "oy oy oy!", and some even explicitly ask for it (e.g., "Damon, I'm having a rough night, I could really use an oy oy oy!"). Another catchphrase is the phrase "pound it, pound it, pound it", which is taken from a caller, Annie in San Francisco. He ends every show by saying, "Sports don't build character, they reveal it.",a John Wooden quote.

A very popular segment on his show is "A coin, mother, and son of a Bruce." His mother, from Indiana, comes on and picks football games, NFL and college. Damon also picks the same games, and the coin is flipped for its picks. In Damon's words, his mother "puts money in your pocket." During the segment, they double-down on Monday Night Football. They pick the game against the spread , as well as the over-under.

Damon believes and often says "Real fans listen late", meaning that diehard (hardcore) fans listen in the evening/night, right after games, and those shows talk the most about sports. His "SPM", or sports per minute, is (in his words) the highest on KNBR. That is because hard-core fans listen to the games and want to react, and thus the show is very focused on sports. The other shows lower SPM may to due to the need for morning and drive-time shows to entertain their audience with laughter to get ratings, and thus talk more pop-culture. Those words are indirect shots at Gary Radnich, whom Damon likes and thinks is entertaining, but talks mostly pop-culture and sports only very casually, and Murph & Mac in the Morning, hosted by Brian Murphy and Paul McCaffery, who also talk sports very casually.

The theme music for Sportsphone 680 is "Jenny Was a Friend of Mine" by The Killers.

References

• http://www.knbr.com/sportsphone/index.html