Dan Ginnane

Dan Ginnane (b.1978 in Sydney, Australia) is a sports broadcaster on Triple M Radio, an Australian FM rock station. He is also a presenter and writer on "Pardon The Interruption" [http://crackerjack.com.au/pti.html] on ESPN, as well as a columnist on sports website "The Serve" [http://theserve.com.au] .

Career

Ginnane started in 2000 with Triple M as a rugby league reporter, providing short reports at the Sunday match of the day. This led to a more prominent role at the station, reading the sports news on the weekends.

He briefly joined 2UE in the summer of 2002/03, before returning to Triple M as producer of Saturday morning sports show "Dead Set Legends", leaving the show at the end of 2006 for other roles at the station.

Early in his stint at the station, he was known only as the 'Sportsfreak', as giving rather unusual identities was a common Triple M trait. Ginnane regained his on-air identity in 2004, when the station introduced the 'Freq club', with 'Sportsfreak' deemed too confusing.

He fronted his own show in 2005-06, The M-Sport Wash Up, on Sunday afternoons. The show was a mix of serious sports interviews and the absurd. Dan would often play Madonna's "Justify My Love" when playing audio of golfer Adam Scott, to 'make him sound sexier'. During the 2006 FIFA World Cup, the show was peppered with commentary of goals in foreign languages, mostly South American. Guests of the show would instantly set off an alarm by merely mentioning the World Cup, prompting a foreign language goal to be played. The most regular feature of the show was the 'Golden Cliche' segment, culminating in a 'Cliche grand final' between Jason Taylor and Mat Rogers. Taylor won a used Atari 2600.

He was a producer of the "Friday M-Sport" show in 2006, however he was hosting with Michael Slater on the afternoon Peter Brock died. The show became a one-hour tribute to Brock.

Ginnane was part of Triple M's Monday Night Football team in 2007, joining Anthony Maroon, Jimmy Smith, Mark Geyer and Kevin Walters. He was the sideline commentator, although he took an unorthodox approach to the role. He often interviewed one of the competing coaches at half time, while regularly using his crosses during matches to ask questions to his fellow commentators and banter about non-sporting topics.

He joined the Wil & Lehmo national drive time programme in 2007 (hosted by Wil Anderson and Anthony Lehmann) as the show's resident sports expert. The weekly segment often resembles a shortened version of the "M-Sport Wash Up", with constant references to bad commentary, excess usage of puns by television sports reporters, as well as a 'filter', regularily used to insert vomit sounds and other effects into cliche-heavy statements.

In 2008, He became the host of "Dead Set Legends", alongside Ray Warren and Phil Gould. He is currently the Executive Producer of Sport for Triple M Sydney.

Television

In 2004, Ginnane joined Russell Barwick and Sam Kekovich on the Australian version of "Pardon The Interruption" [http://crackerjack.com.au/pti.html] , a replica of ESPN's ultra-successful US fast paced sports chat television show. Dan plays the 'Stat Boy' role, occupied in the original version by Tony Reali. The original trio remain with the show.

He has also appeared on the News And Views show on FoxSportsNews, as well as horse racing channel TVN.

Writing

With no writing experience to speak of, he became a columnist for "Inside Sport" magazine in 2005. The column lasted six months, until Ginnane abruptly quit after a line was added to a column without his consent. The line was believed to have referred to 'Rod Stewart being up a blonde'.

Ginnane returned to writing in 2007, with his blog "The Serve" [http://theserve.com.au] . The site originally featured a daily opinion, however "The Serve" [http://theserve.com.au] quickly snowballed into a fully fledged sports website, with news and opinions from Ray Warren and Sam Kekovich.

Poker

It is believed Ginnane took up poker in late 2005, often attending Star City Casino. In just his second tournament, he finished second out of a field of more than 150, collecting $6000. On the final hand, his A-3 was sucked out by his opponent's J-10. Shortly after, he won a similar sized tournament [http://www.pokernetwork.com/tournaments.cfm?view=recentResults&action=show&Event_ID=697&tournamentName=Star%20City%20Monday%20Series&tournamentVenue=Star%20City] (final hand: 8-8 v A-4), gaining a seat (worth $3500) into the Star City 2006 'Grand Final'. In a field of 140, Ginnane finished 40th, eliminated by Emad Tahtouh.

In 2007, he officially won a Star City $300 buy-in tournament, however the prizes were split amongst the top three players, ensuring all three a seat (worth $6300) at the APPT Grand Final at the same venue. Ginnane almost collected back-to-back victories, making the final four a week later. At the main event in December, Ginnane was eliminated on day 1 [http://www.pokernews.com/live-reporting/appt-sydney/main-event/day1b/page8.htm] by noted Japanese player Masaaki Kagawa.