Courtesy Tampa Bay 10

(January 27, 2009) With the Super Bowl in Tampa this week, this is the place to talk sports. The epicenter of sports talk is at the Tampa Convention Center. More than 400 radio sports talk show hosts are in town doing their shows live.

You hear radio talk show hosts talking about subjects ranging from who has the better defense, whether Arizona belongs in the big game to what was the best Super Bowl ever.

Steve Duemig, the talk afternoon host of WDAE The Sports Animal here in Tampa, says they call Radio Row "The Pit," because everybody is reporting the same thing and when athletes walk in, they know they are not coming out soon. Everyone wants to talk to the big names.

Duemig says some big name athletes come to Radio Row and usually they are pretty good about hearing some of the same questions over and over. However, he adds most of them are selling something. Whether they are representing Campbell Soup or something else, there is a reason they are coming into town.

But Duemig says not every athlete that comes to Radio Row is great. He says you can always tell before they sit down for the interview -- if the jocks have a bad attitude, he always makes it a short interview. However, if it's fun, the interview can last for two segments. Duemig says he looks for athletes that enjoy themselves off the field.

This is Duemig's 12th Super Bowl on Radio Row and he says without a doubt his favorite moment came not from a football player but horse racing jockey, Jerry Bailey. Duemig says listeners kept calling in and asking questions and Bailey was such a good interview he didn't want to let him go.

Outside Radio Row and the Convention Center, the NFL Network is broadcasting live, with a much more sophisticated set up than the guys on Radio Row, but most of the radio guys mind the cramped quarters at all.

Duemig says it is a blast, especially after they get off the air. He says that's when everyone gets together and it is like a convention.