Sports fans dream of living the life Carlan Gay has had.
If you can imagine covering different sporting events in multiple countries, then you can see yourself in his shoes for that’s exactly what this once-aspiring sports broadcaster did to get to where he is now.
And why does he do what many aren’t built to do?
“I truly love it,” said Gay.
Most aspiring sports broadcasters would love to be in his place, but how many really have the drive, patience, nerve and mental and physical stamina to travel the road (literally) he has to get to where he is?
The answer is not many.
Gay’s journey began in Montreal and then Toronto, where he found his love of sports on the ice through Canada’s favorite sport, hockey.
In 1993, the Montreal Canadians won the Stanley Cup, and both the city and a young Carlan Gay went crazy.
“I got swept up in the hype,” Gay told me during our interview. “And that was my first true sports memory.”
So he picked up skates and a stick and began playing. Unfortunately, like many who grew up playing the game, hockey became a challenge for him to continue with due to the costs involved.
“It’s not cheap to play, especially growing up in a single family home.”
Couple the cost with the lack of seeing players who looked like him and the time playing hockey came to an end.
Then he and his family moved to Toronto, which coincided with the launch of the Raptors, and in 1998, the team drafted Vince Carter, and that’s when Gay found his new sport.
“Once Vince Carter showed up, that changed the entire landscape of sports in the entire country,” he said. “I don’t think people truly know how great of an impact he made to not just basketball in the country but to sports as a whole. He was the first superstar in Canada that didn’t play hockey in my lifetime.”
And while he still loved hockey, his focus shifted to basketball.
He played ball in school over the next few years and while he realized he wasn’t destined for the pros, he knew he wanted to be involved in sports in some capacity.
“I just wanted to get a paycheck in sports, and I was going to do whatever it took to do that,” said Gay.
And that’s when his future started taking shape.
He began taking classes in radio broadcasting at Seneca College in Toronto and ended up volunteering to in production and broadcasting at a local TV station to learn the ropes and gain experience.
No paycheck.
Just experience.
But broadcasting was what he wanted to do, so he stuck it out for two years, constructing sets, calling games, and breaking down sets, all without getting paid.
That’s something many would not or could not today, yet Carlan was all in.
So he covered baseball, volleyball, basketball, soccer, hockey and many other sports.
“It gave me some experience, but it also gave me the love of television,” said Gay. “It gave me the true understanding of what it takes to put on a show. I got the bug and I can say now that I’m probably more in love with TV than I am with sports.
“While sports brought me to the dance, I’m more interested in the business than I am sports.”
That foundation and struggle in his 20s gave him the experience, dedication and passion to stay in the business, and he attributes his long career to that exciting but challenging time.
“The love has carried me through the ‘no’s’ and the down times.”
During that time, a producer told him, “If you can outlast the field and stick with it, you’ll make it.”
It was one of the most difficult, yet most truthful, pieces of advice he received and it stayed with him as a motivating force as he watched his friends advancing in their careers and lives while he was still living at home with his mom and struggling financially during his pursuit of his sports broadcasting dream.
So he stayed committed and finally he got his big break.
But it wasn’t in Canada.
It was in Australia.
Time Down Under
While heading to the land down under, he was sure his experience would land him his first big job.
Instead, he experienced a rude awakening for he was basically an intern again, calling games for the Sydney Kings of the NBL (National Basketball League) for basically no money again.
But now he was in a foreign country almost 10,000 miles away from Toronto, calling games with players he had no familiarity with.
Yet he refused to quit.
He continued to work on his craft and networked with the same passion. So for the next year, he worked at a Tim Tam cookie factory from 5am to 12pm to earn money, and then would call games in the evening.
After working out some Visa issues, he was able to extend his stay, which allowed him to work with the Kings and eventually the Sporting News Australia beginning in 2016, a job which he still holds today, albeit in the U.S.
During that time, he covered the NBA in the country as the Sporting News ran NBA.com international. And with Australian players like Andrew Bogut of the Warriors, Matthew Dellavedova of the Cavs and Patty Mills and Aron Baynes of the Spurs all in the NBA Finals during his time there, he was in a great position.
Almost two years later, the company’s business was growing and he had a chance meeting with Paul Simpson, who was in charge of assigning the broadcast teams for FIBA. He pitched himself for future opportunities with Paul, they had a good conversation and then Paul was gone.
A few weeks later, Paul called him and told him that a broadcaster dropped out of EuroBasket 2017 so he had an opening. The job would be calling games for two weeks in Tel Aviv and then going to Istanbul to call the quarterfinals.
Carlan was all in, but he had never called an international basketball game before, and now he had to do so in two new countries.
Tel Aviv, Istanbul and the U.S.
So he hit the books and studied the teams and players and headed to Tel Aviv and Istanbul, the latter being where he first saw a young, then-unknown Luka Dončić and future Miami Heat guard Goran Dragić team up and eventually win EuroBasket 2017.
After the tournament, he headed back to Australia and in 2018, he moved to Charlotte to manage the international basketball sites for the Sporting News, which is where he now lives with his wife and son.
In March of this year, Gay was hired by USA Network as a Play-by-Play commentator for WNBA games as part of the network’s new media rights deal with the league.
So after an almost twenty year journey that took him to multiple countries to work games at all levels, Gay is now in the States calling games for the premier women’s basketball league in the world.
He also still calls international games through the Spalk platform, which enables broadcasters to cover games across the world in multiple languages without having to travel, something Carlan greatly values as it gives him more time at home with his family.
It was a long journey, but Gay outlasted those who couldn’t handle the tough times he faced to cultivate a resume many could only dream of.
“It’s not a linear path,” he told me, but it’s the unique one he paved for himself.
And while he didn’t do it alone, for no one does, he did it in a way that not many have or could have, which proves exactly what he told me.
He really loves it.
