The Goal
To revolutionize The Jim Rome Show’s production workflow, maximizing efficiency and audience engagement in the digital era, all while maintaining the high-energy, fast-paced format that has made the show a fan favorite for decades.
The Technology
- Tagboard Graphics: Powering on-screen overlays and dynamic visual treatments
- Real-Time Audience Interaction: Bringing social comments and reactions live to the show
- Social Media Integration: Instant sourcing of B-roll content from X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, TikTok, and more
- Audience Polls: Capturing viewer opinions via X polls
The Result
With Tagboard at its core, The Jim Rome Show has transformed its production workflow, enabling a lean two-person team to produce four hours of dynamic content daily—at least 4x faster than traditional methods. “Tagboard is the heartbeat of our show,” says Mike Goldfarb, Coordinating Director of Content & Production (2024), emphasizing its role in powering every graphic, overlay, and interactive element with remarkable ease of use. The team sources over 4,000 social posts per month for instant B-roll and commentary, integrating real-time audience engagement through X Polls and Break Takes. “It’s not a question of how much time Tagboard saves—it’s whether this level of production is even possible without it,” adds Lorn McLaren Director of Content & Production. Host Jim Rome puts it simply: “Without Tagboard, the show doesn’t happen the way we want it to. Period.”
Since launching his radio show in 1996, Jim Rome has always understood the importance of developing a strong connection with his audience. Over the years, the Radio Hall of Fame inductee has evolved and expanded his show, but one thing has remained constant, his connection with his passionate audience, or as he calls them “Clones”.
In a move to adapt to the evolving media landscape and engage a broader audience through digital platforms, Rome took his show to the X platform in May of 2024. The show is being produced by Range Media Partners, with Future Grade leading the state-of-the-art studio and tech stack build. The teams needed answers to a couple of big questions: How can we produce this show with a lean team, while maintaining the professional quality and standard of The Jim Rome Show? Second, how do we make sure the Rome audience on X is heavily featured in the production? Those two questions had one answer: Tagboard.
The show’s multi-platform format includes a three-hour main show and a one-hour after show all airing on X and FAST channels—a key part of its strategy to grow audience reach and drive new engagement. The FAST channel presence isn’t just a distribution play—it’s a critical component of the production strategy, bringing the show’s signature energy and interactive content to new audiences.
It’s not a question of how much time is Tagboard saving us, it’s a question of ‘is this even possible to pull off without Tagboard?’, and the answer is no.
Lorn McLaren, Director of Content & Production
Jim Rome is the face of the operation, the Clones are its lifeblood, and Tagboard is the heartbeat—powering every graphic, overlay, and interactive element that keeps the show moving. Behind the scenes, a lean two-person team keeps that heart pumping: Lorn McLaren, Coordinating Director of Content & Production, and Nick Zacharczuk, Assistant Director & Graphics Producer. Together, they handle everything from building graphics to running interactive elements live across the four hours of daily production.
“We are prepping a four hour show in a 2.5 hour block of time. When it comes to video production the time spent prepping the show is traditionally way longer than the actual production,” said Mike Goldfarb, Coordinating Director of Content & Production (2024). “The speed and ease of building within the Tagboard platform has totally flipped the math, and it’s incredible how much content we can create in a fraction of the time of traditional workflows.”
With decades of experience producing live shows at the highest level, Goldfarb, McLaren, and Zacharczuk bring a deep understanding of production workflows—and how dramatically they’ve evolved. Zacharczuk, a 25-year sports media veteran, has worked on major network productions and knows the difference firsthand.
“I’ve worked on big network productions, producing a four hour show once a week. Those shows take an army of people to bring to air,” said Zacharczuk. “Now, we’re producing four hours of content five days a week. You have to step up, wear multiple hats, and rely on agile tools to make it happen. Tagboard gives us that agility—it’s incredibly fast.”
“At previous stops we had much larger teams, producing much shorter shows, and the production processes were painstakingly long,” said Goldfarb. “If we replicated those traditional systems, and structures, with this show, it would take probably 8 hours to create what can now be handled by just Lorn and me in 2.”
Tagboard integrates seamlessly into the production workflow, with its HTML5 graphic output running through vMIX for SDI conversion, then fed into an ATEM Blackmagic 4E switcher.
Behind the scenes, Future Grade played a pivotal role in building out the technical foundation of the show. Their team configured the cloud-first graphics pipeline and ensured rock-solid stability across live streams—making the vision a reality. Led by Vignesh Mohanraj and Austin James Smith, the team tackled two key challenges: finding a faster, more cost-effective way to showcase B-roll during the show, and creating an engaging format to fill commercial breaks when traditional radio and ad-supported platforms go to break.
They solved both challenges—and more—through Tagboard. The result: significant production cost savings and the introduction of ‘Break Takes,’ a fan-favorite segment that brings real-time audience voices into commercial breaks and keeps the energy alive.
Creating B-Roll Content With a Single Click
One of the secret weapons of the entire production is Tagboard’s ability to source content from a wide range of social media platforms, which can be utilized for B-roll footage. In initial planning, the show was going to use Getty Pre-rolls for B-roll, but they would have hit their total allotment very quickly and sent costs skyrocketing.
“Once I know the topics for the day, I go find relevant sound bites from players and coaches, insider breaking news, or any other supporting content from social media,” said McLaren. “Once we find it, Tagboard enables us to feature it with a single click and send it to a pre-built graphic template we created. I can create a piece of B-roll in a matter of seconds.”
McLaren, now Coordinating Director began as the AD and Graphics Producer, is featuring 200 pieces of content on average per show, and more than 4,000 pieces of content every month. That’s in addition to all the work he does creating traditional graphics for the show, like lower thirds, name fonts, and full screen graphics. A game-changing efficiency that’s hard to even try and compute.
“It’s not a question of how much time is Tagboard saving us, it’s a question of ‘is this even possible to pull off without Tagboard?’, and the answer is no,” said McLaren. “Being able to source content for b-roll in seconds, also enables us to be nimble as unexpected topics are brought up or breaking news happens during the middle of the show.”
Zacharczuk is now the one wearing that hat, and highlights the power of Tagboard in a show that doesn’t always stay on script. “I can enhance the broadcast and add visual context wherever the conversation goes. The ability to add an asset in a moment’s notice doesn’t compare to anything I’ve used in the past.”
Audience Engagement in Real-time
As mentioned off the top, Jim Rome’s relationship with his “Clones” is central to the show’s success. Call ins and faxes have been daily segments from the inception of the show, and now with the use of Tagboard’s interactive technology, they can integrate real-time audience opinions from social media at an incredible volume.
“Sourcing posts from the Clones is a great way to fill our commercial breaks while streaming on X, we call them Break Takes.” said McLaren. “Break Takes keep the energy alive even during commercial breaks, featuring more audience voices than ever before—something that wouldn’t have been possible in traditional formats.”
The transition to the X platform was all about reaching a broader audience and introducing the show’s signature style and engaging rundown to a new generation of Clones.
“This show thrives on the Clones’ energy, and Tagboard gives me the power to bring their reactions and commentary straight into the mix,” said Jim Rome. “Whether they’re dropping takes, reacting to interviews, or throwing shade. Without Tagboard, the show doesn’t happen the way we want it to. Period.”
The Jim Rome Show exemplifies the true differentiator of Tagboard’s interactive graphics platform. It empowers teams to create engaging, dynamic content with unmatched efficiency. For McLaren, Zacharczuk, and Rome, Tagboard isn’t just a tool—it’s the foundation of their operation. With Tagboard at its core, the show isn’t just keeping pace—it’s setting the standard for modern sports talk production.