JP Finlay Recap
On Thursday, March 8, the University of Maryland Sports Business Society welcomed JP Finlay to campus. Finlay works as a Redskins insider for NBC Sports Washington. Finlay spoke about his path to NBC Sports Washington, his work covering the Redskins and how he ingratiates himself in an NFL locker room.
Graduating from UMD in 2003 with a degree in communications, Finlay said he didn’t know what he wanted to do after a college but he loved writing and sports. Finlay’s first job was as an insurance salesman, but he returned to school, attending Georgetown for graduate school in journalism. From there, Finlay said he worked to build contacts and get his foot in the door.
“If you want to write, do it all the time,” Finlay advised students aspiring to be journalists.
After graduate school, Finlay moved to Wilmington, North Carolina, to take a newspaper job but returned to Washington, D.C., taking on freelance jobs with media outlets like SB Nation and Washingtonian. In 2012, he took a position with Comcast SportsNet (now NBC Sports Washington) as a Redskins insider.
Finlay described covering the Redskins as “constant work.” On game days, he said he gets to the stadium around 9:30 a.m. He usually has a Facebook Live show prior to the game then watches the game from the press box. When the game concludes, he completes a post-game show and conducts interviews with players in the locker room. While there is daily writing in his job, Finlay said he has incorporated more podcasts into his work over the past few years.
With interaction with players and coaches being a crucial part of his job, Finlay emphasized the importance of establishing genuine relationships with the team. While his job is to report on the team’s play on the field, he said he will often talk to players and coaches about their family and topics that are important to them to build trust.
“[Just] be a person,” Finlay said.
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