Greg Sage enters his 21st year with Belmont University Athletics and serves Associate Athletic Director for Broadcasting & Media Relations.
In that capacity, Sage oversees publicity of all 17 NCAA Division I Bruin athletic teams, the Bruin Sports Network, the official website of Belmont University Athletics - belmontbruins.com - mobile app, broadcasting and digital partnerships, content creation, creative design, sport publications and all aspects of media relations and sports information for the Bruin program.
He also plays a lead role in Belmont Athletics' overall brand strategy.
Sage serves as the primary media relations' contact for the Belmont's men's basketball program, managing the official social media accounts for the Bruins - while serving as color analyst for Bruin Sports Network and ESPN+ broadcasts. For the first time in 2013, the Bruin Sports Network produced home men's basketball games against Middle Tennessee and Lipscomb for live air on Comcast Sports Southeast (CSS) and ESPN3. BSN also produced the telecast of Belmont's 2014 home contest against nationally-ranked VCU, the 2017 edition of the Belmont-Middle Tennessee series, the 2018 home opening victory over Vanderbilt on Facebook LIVE in partnership with Stadium, and two OVC exclusive broadcasts (Austin Peay, Tennessee State) for air on WUXP MyTV30. In all, Sage has helped Belmont secure a program-record 146 televised games over the past decade - including Belmont's run to the championship game of the 2021 ESPN Events Invitational.
Under Sage's watch, media coverage of Belmont men's basketball has risen exponentially. The Bruins burst on the scene with their first NCAA Tournament berth in 2006 and have remained fixtures ever since. Aside from traditional local print, radio and television coverage, the Bruins have been featured prominently in national television and radio segments, as well as profiled in renowned digital platforms, magazines, newspapers and online publications, including ESPN, Fox Sports, USA Today, Sports Illustrated, NPR, Yahoo Sports, CBSSports.com, NBCSports.com, NBA.com, NCAA.com, Sporting News, Bleacher Report, The Athletic, SBNation, Intersport, SiriusXM, CNN, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Players' Tribune, The New York Times, The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. Sage secured live look-ins at Belmont University during the CBS and ESPN NCAA Men's Basketball Championship Selection Shows seven times (2011, 2012, 2015, 2018, 2019, 2021, 2022), as well as national media coverage for Belmont's Integrity in Sport panel discussions featuring Rick Byrd, Brad Stevens, Kevin Stallings, Jimmy Dykes, Mitch Barnhart, Dan Beebe, and Beth DeBauche.
Sage has optimized press coverage for Belmont men's basketball alumni, including All-American and NBA champion Ian Clark ('13), starting with a transcendent Sports Illustrated feature by Luke Winn leading into the 2013 NBA Draft. And more recently, guard/forward and 2019 NBA first-round draft choice Dylan Windler ('19), Pure Sweat Basketball CEO Drew Hanlen ('12) and Indiana Pacers guard Ben Sheppard ('23).
Belmont men's basketball earned national Top 25 poll votes 11 of the last 14 seasons.
Sage has also spearheaded a strategic PR plan centered around Belmont's highly-successful women's basketball program. The net result: Belmont earned placement in the national Top 25 polls (Associated Press & USA Today Coaches) for five consecutive weeks in 2018, as women's basketball became the first Bruin program of the NCAA Division I era to crack the Top 25. ESPN also led the 2018 NCAA Women's Basketball Selection Show with a Belmont feature and live look-in at the campus celebration within the Curb Event Center four times. From increased national media attention, All-American Darby Maggard earned entry into the 2019 National 3-Point Championship. NCAA Tournament victories over Gonzaga and Oregon and a 2025 WBIT Championship game run also helped Belmont gain feature coverage from ESPN.com, NCAA.com and The Athletic.
In regards to athletic department branding, Sage conceptualized and executed several marketing and social media campaigns including I Love Belmont and #investedinyou - embodying the engagement and benevolence of the Bruin community. Sage also launched landmark programming such as This Week in Belmont Athletics, Bruin Untold Stories, Three Points with Belmont Women's Basketball, and Clash at the Curb - a three-part series featuring Casey Alexander and Bart Brooks for ESPN+ - and more recently, the successful In Layman's Terms podcast with men's basketball lead broadcaster Steve Layman.
Belmont men's basketball has also distinguished itself in regards to national award recognition, leading the nation in CoSIDA Academic All-America selections (19) since 2001. Moreover, a Belmont men's basketball player has been named to the Division I-AAA Athletics Directors Association (DI-AAA ADA) Men's Basketball Scholar-Athlete Team 16 times, with five Bruins honored at the Final Four in the last decade for exemplary commitment to athletics, academics, community service and civic engagement.
In addition, Sage is the point person for Belmont's multimedia partners, including ESPN, 104.5 The Zone, MyTV30, STADIUM, SIDEARM, Stretch Internet, and StatBroadcast. Belmont has increased its presence on 104.5 The Zone every year, standing as the only middle Tennessee sports entity through 2019 to have games aired on WFGX-FM since the station adopted a sports talk format in the fall of 2003. Beyond increased live game play-by-play, Sage helped secure Coach Byrd and Coach Alexander as a regular contributors on the all dayparts and Blue Ribbon College Basketball Hour. In fact, Belmont has forged numerous partnerships with prominent Nashville media members to amplify the Belmont brand.
Sage partnered with PrestoSports and spearheaded one of the first responsive web designs in college athletics (OAS). In fact, belmontbruins.com claimed the 2015 Athletic Website Tournament on edustyle.net, which mirrored the 2015 NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship in regards to single-elimination format and a 68-team field, with universities advancing based on overall aesthetic and functionality of their official athletic website.
In 2017, Sage also secured headlines as former men's basketball assistant coach Tyler Holloway was named one of Nashville's Most Eligible by Nashville Lifestyles magazine.
In conjunction with the university office of communications, Sage ran point on all Nashville sports coverage of the 2018 Davis Cup tie between the United States and Belgium at the Curb Event Center.
Sage also serves as co-chair and executive producer of the athletic program's online video production operations for ESPN+ with Faculty Athletics Representative emeritus Rich Tiner and is an ex officio member and chairperson of the Belmont Athletic Hall of Fame leadership panel.
In recent years, Sage has been honored for outstanding writing by the TSWA, professionalism in announcing by the Ohio Valley Conference and was part of the Bruin team to accept the inaugural OVC Digital Network Program of Excellence Award for campus-based productions. Belmont was the only campus-based production to earn OVCDN awards in the first three years of the OVCDN Program of Excellence.
Moreover, Sage served as executive producer of The Season: With Belmont Women's Basketball and Belmont Volleyball: All In, which were national finalists for the SVG/NACDA College Sports Media Award in the category Outstanding Program Series. Belmont has earned 11 national finalist honors the last five years.
Sage also has acted as point person for Belmont University Athletics on matters of conference affiliation, and spearheaded the department's efforts in gaining men's soccer affiliate membership in the Southern Conference.
He has also served on a number of Belmont coaching search committees.
Sage is a member of the United States Basketball Writers Association (USBWA), the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA), the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA), the Tennessee Sports Writers Association (TSWA) and has served as a feature writer for Tennessee Sports Magazine.
He also has served as an adjunct instructor in Belmont University's media studies undergraduate program and sport administration graduate program.
Prior to Belmont, Sage worked as a producer at The Golf Channel in Orlando, and a sports anchor/reporter/producer at two affiliates in his hometown of Rochester, New York. Aside from covering NFL games and calling hundreds of college games throughout his career, Sage also served as a fill-in radio talk show host for 'The Takeo Spikes Show' on the Buffalo Bills Radio Network.
Sage earned a bachelor's degree in economics with a minor in communications from Wake Forest University ('98) and a master's degree in broadcast journalism from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University ('99). He and his wife, Tisha, live in Franklin, Tennessee. The couple has two daughters.
