“On-Air” Championship Wins off the Ice

By Sydney Ciano

In 1980 with Winthrop’s welcoming of Mike Eruzione riding high in a convertible following his game-winning goal for Team USA, the Winthrop youth hockey team ran up to Bell Isle Bridge dressed in jerseys and cowboy hats. For 10-year-old Chris Wayland at the time, the miracle moment made him realize anything was possible with a team and common goal “because that was an impossible situation.”

The now-President and General Manager of NBCUniversal originally grew up in Everett before moving to Winthrop. There he learned to play hockey at half-rink, eventually following in his older brother’s footsteps and stepped into skates for Winthrop youth hockey. Young Chris spent his youth career as a forward before switching to a right wing defenseman in the eighth grade.

Rick Feeley suggested this position change the year before Chris attended Dominic Savio High School in East Boston. As he remembers it, Feeley believed he could control the game better from the backside of the rink.

“[That change] sort of changed my whole path in hockey,” Chris said, believing he had a much greater contribution to the game.

During his first year at the preparatory school, freshman hockey coach and biology teacher Bill Maradei challenged him each day at practice. Joining the varsity squad his sophomore year, Chris credited his defense coach Steve Goddard for the rest of his high school success.

“I wouldn’t have played at the college level if it wasn’t for [Goddaard],” Chris said.

He attended Division III Elmira College in New York after high school, playing hockey all four years and graduated in 1988 with a degree in business administration and a specialization in marketing. Playing for the Soaring Eagles kept him in a competitive environment, which is what made the game so special for him. However, he thought his days on the ice would be over after graduation.

It was his one week at the Portland Pirates’ camp that kept Chris in skates. Nick Fotiu, the head coach of the East Coast Hockey League’s Nashville Knights at the time, took him on. Here, he learned that there was more to the sport than just athleticism. It was a business.

“You lose that pageantry of college hockey… the comradery,” he said. “It’s a cold hard business, either you perform or you go home.”

With hockey being a key element of his life since the age of five, Chris believed he would find himself playing for the major league. If not the National Hockey League, he thought he would be helping other kids skate their way down the rink as a coach. After experiencing minor league hockey, though, he decided he needed a break from the sport.

“I certainly loved playing hockey, but the thing I loved the most… was I always wanted to be in the most competitive environment [as] possible and I wanted to be in a leadership position in that environment,” Chris said.

Though at the time he did not know it, hockey helped Chris satisfy being part of a team, staying competitive, and achieving goals with a tight-knit small team. In fact, he shared that it is what he misses the most. Regardless, he felt that his time had run out on the hockey clock.

After the ECHL, Chris took some time before finding his rhythm with NBCUniversal. He first held a sales position at WQRC 99.9, not knowing exactly where his career would take him and expected himself to stay with the sales business.

It was not until joining NBCUniversal that sports began to find a place back in his life. Eight months into running NBC10 Boston, Telemundo Boston, and New England Cable News, NBC Sports Boston asked if Chris would be willing to run their property as well.

The obvious answer was: yes.

He had grown up loving the local New England teams and played almost every sport: baseball, hockey, basketball, lacrosse, and soccer. His one regret? Not playing football.

On April 1, 2020, Chris became the company’s president, facing two challenges simultaneously: transitioning four properties into one unit, and navigating the early beginnings of Covid-19.

He said in the transition, protecting the individual and distinct personalities of each business while finding a common goal for all was his biggest challenge. Chris wanted to leverage themselves in the marketplace as best as possible in the most effective and respectful way. Just as he did as a captain in skates, he led a group of individuals in unity to achieve something not one person or company could do alone.

Sports was his outlet to compete and achieve over and over again. Having the opportunity to run all four NBCUniversal properties allowed Chris to keep the competitive nature of sports in his life. He said he tries to recreate the team aspect of sports and the unity between players – or employees. Achieving a common goal, or a championship win, remains in Chris’ life even years away from the rink.

For him, the championship win is succeeding in the Boston media market. Boston is currently the ninth biggest market in the nation.

“We’ve moved… to a spot where we’ve completely come together as a group – those four properties – we’ve maintained their individual identities… but we understand that our scale as an operation allows us to compete in this marketplace in a way that nobody else can,” he said.

Another main goal of the company is to produce “News Worthy of You” – or news worthwhile to the local community as a whole. While it is exciting to produce news seen by thousands on the daily, Chris knows that they have a great responsibility to the people. He emphasizes that the news produced should be important and impactful to the consumers.

This business side of the media was not new to him. He learned from the ECHL that business was a priority.

While he still has his own opinions and feelings about developments in the sports world, especially with the Celtics as they have a partnership where the team owns 30 percent of the network, Chris finds himself being “a much more measured superfan” with less of an emotional attachment to the game.

His appreciation for the teams capable of and accomplishing winning a championship, though, has not faded. This same excitement now stretches to media employees who are given their chance at their own championship.

“You have all these dreams and goals to achieve… Boston, it’s certainly the best or one of the best sports towns in the country… it’s a really competitive news market with really competitive operators,” he said. “So if you get selected to be part of the Boston media marketplace in any way, shape, or form, that’s like making it to the National Hockey League,” or being a Team USA gold medalist.