Top Rank Boxing’s Alex Adeyanju appreciates diversity of experience he got at Ohio University and WOUB

Alex Adeyanju never imagined that he would be where he is today but says he wouldn’t have gotten there without learning every facet of the media business while an Ohio University student working at WOUB Public Media.

“When I graduated high school, I knew I wanted to do sports. I played a lot of sports and watched a lot of sports. But I knew I wasn’t going to a D1 college to play basketball or football,” said Adeyanju chuckling. “So, my dream was to be on-air at ESPN.”

Adeyanju grew up in Lawrence, Kansas but moved to Ohio after his senior year of high school when his dad got a job at Ohio University. That’s when he learned about the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism in Athens and the opportunities available to gain real-world experience at WOUB.

“I went to start working at WOUB as a freshman. I did early morning radio sports updates. Getting up that early was a little rough as freshman,” said Adeyanju with a laugh.

While pursuing his journalism degree, Adeyanju eventually started shooting and editing video and anchoring sports on WOUB TV’s NewsWatch. He also became the host of WOUB’s high school sports program Gridiron Glory and was the first Black anchor of the program.

“There weren’t a lot of people who looked like me doing what I was doing at WOUB,” said Adeyanju. “It opened the door for others to see that people come in all different shapes and sizes.”

Adeyanju graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Journalism in December of 2005 and started applying for many different jobs in sports. He was offered a job as the assistant multimedia sports editor at the Naples Daily News newspaper in Florida.

“The Naples Daily News was one of the first newspapers to do a nightly video newscast and weekly high school football sports show online,” said Adeyanju. “Since I learned all the facets of the business at WOUB, I was ready for this job. If I hadn’t hosted Gridiron Glory, I wouldn’t have been able to host the high school football show in Florida. I knew what the expectations were for a program like that.”

After a couple of years in Naples, Adeyanju moved on to a similar position at the Las Vegas Sun.

“Eventually I realized I didn’t want to be an on-air person anymore. I enjoyed working behind the scenes,” said Adeyanju. “And that’s when the opportunity to work at Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) opened up.”

Adeyanju was hired as a digital production specialist and was promoted a few times to eventually become the manager of production. Over his nine years there, Adeyanju created and managed content plans for all live events. Then in 2019, Adeyanju was hired as the director of digital production and programming at Top Rank Boxing. He was recently promoted to senior director of digital production and programming. Adeyanju oversees content on YouTube, ESPN and ESPN Plus and is involved in the production of 32 live events a year as well as Pay-Per-Views.

“This isn’t the way I saw myself working with ESPN when I was in college, but it’s great,” said Adeyanju. “At Ohio University, WOUB was a great experience and allowed me to find my own path. It helped me diversify myself because I was permitted to do so many different things. Being there let me dip my toe into different aspects and helped me find what I really wanted to do.”

To learn more about WOUB, visit woub.org.