I got the chance to prolific radio host Grant Paulsen about the Nationals and his own career
Grant Paulsen has been a fixture on 106.7 The Fan for years now. Talking to him, it is easy to see why. He is a natural communicator who is a passionate sports fan. Grant could talk all day long. He is also able to provide a level of substance as well. Getting to chat with him was a pleasure, as he is a very bright mind in the media space. Here is the conversation we had this morning.
Q: What do you think about the recent MASN news and how will it impact the franchise moving forward?
A: It is a game changer. I think this is a big, big deal. This has been an ominous cloud hanging over the Nationals for a long time. At its core, it is just ridiculous that the Orioles owned the Nats local TV rights. This should give them the possibility even in an unpredictable era of local TV and Major League Baseball of making more money on their TV deal and having more money coming into the organization.
It also removes what was not only an obstacle for the Lerner’s, but also an excuse that was built in for a long time. I think it is a really good thing for the team, the ownership and the fans.
Q: What are your thoughts on this offseason, do you think they should have done more?
A: I was disappointed by the offseason. There is no reason why they could not have been more aggressive at this point in their build. I feel as though they have the young talent to compete. If you look at trios of ascending young players, there are very few teams with a better triumvirate of young bats than James Wood, CJ Abrams and Dylan Crews. To supplement those guys with help in the lineup like a big bopping power hitting run producer would have been appetizing. Similarly, in the rotation, I thought this could have been the offseason where they could have made the leap and gone after a formidable front of the rotation type arm.
Reasonably, they haven’t spent the last few years, which I was on board with. They were rebuilding, and still are to some extent. They have done such a good job in this rebuild, primarily with the trades, especially the Juan Soto deal. The system has gone from being not particularly good to being in a much better spot and much deeper. It is not just the studs like Dylan Crews who were drafted early. They are graduating internal options like Jake Irvin and Jacob Young. These guys were not drafted in the first couple rounds. All of those things are good, but I thought it was time to add and supplement with some higher end talent to get them over that .500 mark and build a wild card type team. Hopefully they do that next year but I don’t think there was any reason why they couldn’t have done that this year.
Q: Tell me a little bit about yourself? Did you grow up in the area and were you always in love with DC sports?
A: I am born and raised in King George, Virginia, which is next to Fredericksburg. I was a die hard Orioles fan, but I loved all DC sports teams though. The Redskins at the time, the Caps, the Wizards were my squads. For baseball, I was a massive Orioles fan, obsessed with Cal Ripken jr. and Brady Anderson as a kid. As I got a little bit older, the group became Miguel Tejada, Melvin Mora etc. I would drive up to Camden Yards when I got my license at 16 so many times at night that my dad sat me down and asked me where me and my buddy were going, he didn’t believe us. Over a home stand, we would go to three or four out of six games, driving two hours up to Baltimore. Looking back, my parents letting me do that was pretty crazy.
Anyway, I was a huge O’s fan. Even when the Nats came, I stayed an O’s fan. When the Nats came while I was in high school, they were just another team to me. My DC ties didn’t immediately make me gravitate to them. I was very loyal to the Orioles. I started working every day on 106.7 the fan back in 2014 doing Grant and Danny. Most days we would talk about the Nats and because of that you are watching the Nats to do your job and you are going to the clubhouse to cover them. I started to get to know people around the organization and player. You know, I watched them everyday knowing that if they won it was better to talk about them. You start rooting for them that way and then over time it became natural that the Nats were on my primary screen. It is the DC team and I’m a DMV guy. They became my club and I watch 162 games. They are what the Orioles were when I was a kid.
I root for the O’s as well. My wife is a die hard Orioles fan and we go to Camden Yards. I am raising my kids as Nats fans because that is home for them as well. They have some O’s gear as well. I’ve got two TV’s down in my man cave, so generally I am watching them both.
Q: How did you get into radio, and was that always an interest for you?
A: Yes actually, I was lucky. My uncle was a disk jockey, a morning radio host for a rock station in Pittsburgh unrelated to sports. It was almost like an Elliot in the morning type show. They did a lot of comedy bits and talk, but it was a morning show where they played music on a rock station. When I went up to visit him when I was real young, I went in to see it and thought it was the coolest thing in the world. He was talking into a microphone and thousands of people were listening. When we would go out to dinner when we visited him people would come up and tell him they loved the show. I just thought it was awesome.
From there, we got into this argument about the Redskins vs the Steelers in a preseason scrimmage. At this point I was about nine years old, and I was talking trash about how the Redskins beat the Steelers 14-7 in the scrimmage or something. He was like how do you know all this? He had me call into the radio show one morning to argue about the game thinking it was funny that I was a little kid and so passionate. It turns out that people liked the segment, so he had me on for a few weeks in a row to be his sports bookie where I would give the betting lines and tell people who to bet on. It became a comedy bit on his radio show, but I thought I was actually Mel Kiper or something.
Long story short, the local newspaper wrote a story on that. I started writing a piece in the local newspaper. A local newscast filmed a little story about how I was writing and doing radio as a little 10 year old. None of it was overly impressive. Then I started making picks on Channel 9 in DC. From all of that, I got the big break of appearing on the Letterman Show, which I ended up doing six times, which is crazy to think about. It was one of the thrills of my life.
From that, Sirius XM reached out to me when they were launching around ‘01/’02 and they asked me to be on the air as a young teenager, 13 at the time to host a sports show on a talk channel. I started hosting radio shows when I was 13, and I have been doing it ever since. It was something I really fell in love with. The opportunities I got from being a cute little kid eventually dried up because I was no longer young, or cute or little or a kid. I went to school at George Mason and kept plugging away. I always had shows on XM throughout and then I got my foot in the door at 106.7 the fan as an assistant beat reporter on the Redskins beat. I served as an assistant to Chris Russell on the beat for a year. When he left for 980 the next year, I took over as the beat reporter and I did that for four years, covering the team during the Mike Shanahan era. Then after those four years, I got a mid day show with Danny Rouhier in 2014. He and I are still together in the afternoon 10 years later.
Q: What is your bold prediction for the 2025 Nationals season?
A: Hmm, I like that, let me think about that. I am trying to think if this is bold enough, but I am thinking Mackenzie Gore 200 strikeouts. He punched out about 180 last year, I think he gets to 200 this year. I will say James Wood hits 30 home runs. My last one is that Dylan Crews steals 30 bags.