No surprise here that the early ratings info from this year's World Series are not all that strong. MLB can blame it on a variety of factors, but there really is only one explanation. Somehow MLB continues to keep the Wild Card games, Division Series, and the Championship Series in each league mostly off of over the air channels.
It's getting worse. This post-season we had a total of ONE telecast over the air on Fox.
Sure, the NBA and NHL have their post-season games only on cable. But there is one important difference. Their fans know where to find those games.
With the NBA, ESPN/ABC combine to carry telecasts every week, with ESPN producing several doubleheaders on weeknights and ABC airing Saturday games in prime time during the second half of the regular season.
TNT produces doubleheaders at least once per week throughout the season. Those same two networks share the post-season telecasts, and fans are used to finding the games on one or the other.
For the NHL, NBC and NBCSN show a good amount of regular season telecasts each week during the season. Again, the fans know where to find the games and are familiar with the contending teams.
Not the case with MLB. Over the past couple of years, TBS reduced its regular season presence in half, now showing Sunday games starting after the All-Star break and doing so without the benefit of a consistent starting time.
Fox Sports shows MLB in prime time for a few Saturdays before the All-Star break, and then waits to resume until September, when their telecasts go up against numerous college football games. Fox Sports 1 shows at least one live game each Saturday, but still doesn't generate a large enough audience from its other programming to bring an audience.
While ESPN has a steady flow of games on Sunday nights, along with most Mondays and Wednesdays, the network chose to cut back on its MLB coverage this season, drastically reducing Baseball Tonight from every night to no more than once per week during most of the season.
Along comes the post-season, with its varied starting times and networks the fans are not used to covering almost all of the games. By the time we get to the World Series, many casual fans are not familiar with the teams and what has been taking place. It's nuts that Fox Sports expects an enthusiastic audience when elimination games between the Astros and Yankees were limited to Fox Sports 1. They won't even allow games to air on the local Fox stations in the participating markets.
Out of sight, out of mind. MLB has a World Series with two teams which won 100 games in the same season, representing two of the larger markets. Hopefully they'll make the fans winners when it comes to the next round of negotiations.
The baseball announcer named to the Baseball Hall of Fame next year will very likely be a long-time and well known national voice of baseball. Five of the seven finalists, named this week, for The Ford Frick Award which goes to one broadcaster each season, are known for their work around the country.
Bob Costas, now calling games for MLB Network, and Joe Buck of Fox Sports lead the list of nominations. Also on the list is NBC's Al Michaels. Some of the younger fans probably don't realize that Michaels rose to national fame as a baseball broadcaster in the 70's. After leaving the Cincinnati Reds radio booth, he joined ABC and called many of their Monday Night Baseball telecasts as well as post-season games.
Of course, Michaels is more widely known for his excellent work in prime time for the NFL, as well as for his 1980 Olympics hockey call for ABC.
The other two nominees who called games at the national level are Joe Morgan and Pee Wee Reese. In addition, Buddy Blattner, who called Royals games for many of the early years in franchise history after coming over from the Chicago White Sox, and Dizzy Dean, the former pitcher who was known for his broadcast personality from his years on the Cardinals broadcasts, are on the list.
The vote winner will be announced on Dec. 13th. Look for either Costas or Buck to get the nod.
Speaking of calling games for many years, a salute is in order for Joel Utley, who broadcasts Kentucky Wesleyan basketball. Not enough people are aware that Utley is returning in a couple of weeks to begin his 57th season of calling their games. His first broadcast was on Dec. 2, 1961, and he has called an estimated 1,600 games since then. Incredibly, Wesleyan has had winning seasons (including a string of six consecutive Division II national championships) during 50 of those 56 years.
Also making this a huge accomplishment is the fact that a small school doesn't have a big budget, and Utley has worked the vast majority of the games alone.
A pair of unrelated questionable moments from ESPN within the past couple of days.
On Monday (10/23) ESPN2 aired one episode of "Barstool Van Talk" and then canceled it before so much as a second episode could air on Tuesday. The belief is that this was due to social media exchanges between ESPN staffers and the staff of the blog associated with this show.
The feeling here is that this was a calculated move by ESPN to attempt to destroy the image of this show. The casual fan will take on the point of view that the show "didn't make it" and isn't worthwhile and keep watching the line of similar concept shows already on ESPN and ESPN2.
As a result, ESPN has been able to destroy potential competition, while Barstool will have a tough time gaining this level of popularity in the future.
On Tuesday, ESPN Stats & Info put out on its Twitter feed (hours prior to Game 1 of the World Series) that "Dodgers 7-1 this post season. 1998 Yankees only team in wild card era to win World Series with 2 losses or fewer."
The fact that there was no guarantee that the Dodgers would win the upcoming World Series, or if they did that it would happen with only one loss was not the problem with this post.
They forgot to do their fact checking, since the White Sox went 11-1 in the 2005 post-season on their way to the World Series win that season. Furthermore, their first win of that post season, the ALDS opener against Boston, was televised on ESPN.
Indeed, an interesting start to this week over at ESPN.
NEW YORK: Former WNBC-TV and NBC Network sportscaster Len Berman is temporarily the solo morning host on news/talk WOR 710 as of this past Friday (10/20). This was the result of WOR releasing morning co-host Todd Schnitt last week. Look for a new co-host to be added by Thanksgiving, and for Berman to remain on the morning show.
ATLANTA: Bob Whitfield, who played for 15 seasons in the NFL, is no longer a co-host of the "Regular Guys" sports talk show on WFOM 1230 The Fan 2. The interesting part is that Whitfield is very much still with the group of stations. Management says that Whitfield will become a bigger part of a different show, possibly on sister station WCNN 680/93.7. In addition, word is that the other sister station, WIFN 1340/106.3 could also add some local sports programming within the next six months.
COLUMBIA MO: University of Missouri basketball broadcasts, which begin in a couple weeks, will have a new analyst as a result of a University decision. Long time analyst Gary Link has been removed from the broadcast team and had his role in the school's Athletics Department reduced simultaneously. Reportedly, Link had become critical of others in the Athletic Department.
Obviously, no reason was officially given for this change. And no replacement analyst named as of press time.
Wednesday, October 25, 2017
Thursday, October 19, 2017
Twin Cities Fans In The Discussion
It's a wonderful way for sports fans to be involved in the discussion, literally. The University of Minnesota Sports Management Program, along with the Minnesota Twins, will be hosting a panel discussion on November 8th. Called "The Challenges & Future Landscape of The Twin Cities Sports Industry, the event will take place inside of TCF Bank Stadium. Hosted by Dave Mona, former WCCO sportscaster who also was analyst on U. of Minnesota football earlier in his career, other panel members will include U. of Minnesota Athletic Director Mark Coyle.
Bryan Donaldson of the Twins, Dannon Hulskotter of the Vikings, and Ryan Tanke of the Timberwolves will also participate. At press time, it was not certain who will participate from the Wild.
The announcement of this event mentions that the Twin Cities market is actually the smallest market in the U.S. with six major league pro sports teams, a Division I sports program, and a minor league team.
What makes this such a wonderful event for the fans is that the event is free and open to the public.
The trend of putting sports radio shows on TV continues going into 2018. CBS Sports Network will pick up The Jim Rome Show starting Jan. 2nd from Noon to 3 PM ET.
NEW YORK: Although nothing was done about Fox Sports hiding most of the American League Championship Series on FS1, the network finally gave in and allowed YES Network to begin its local post-game coverage to begin shortly after the end of the game, starting with Monday's (10/16) Game 3.
During the Division Series and for Games 1 and 2 against Houston, YES had to wait at least 30 minutes after the end of the game for FS1's postgame show to conclude. Incredibly, YES Network was forced to wait roughly 90 minutes after the end of the Yankees' clinching win over Cleveland in the ALDS to begin its post-game show well after the fact.
As bad as it is that Fox buries playoff games on FS1, it's even more of an outrage that Fox doesn't allow its over the air stations in and around the participating markets to air the games.
LOS ANGELES: Former NFL standout Eric Davis, who appears on various FS1 programming, has joined KSPN 710 to co-host afternoons with Marcellus Wiley and Kelvin Washington. This is in addition to Davis being a part of the Rams radio pre and postgame shows along with Travis Rodgers and Kirk Morrison.
This Sunday (10/22) has the L.A. market getting "only" three telecasts, with two of them being a Rams then Raiders doubleheader. The Rams meet the AZ Cardinals in London on Sunday. After years of hyping the London telecasts, including several national telecasts starting at 9:30 AM ET, the NFL knew they couldn't get away with what would have been a 6:30 AM local time telecast for both teams.
As a result, this will merely be one of the early regional games, with a 10 AM local time start in L.A. and Phoenix. This time around, the game will only be seen in a few northwest markets beyond Southern California (although San Diego is scheduled at press time to get New Orleans at Green Bay) and Arizona. Sam Rosen and Ronde Barber will call that game.
The other games will be CBS games, with the early primary game of Carolina at Chicago (moved over from Fox to CBS) followed by L.A. getting Denver vs. the Chargers as the market's only late game. Even San Diego gets the Chargers as its only late telecast.
ATLANTA: 92.9 The Game continues to beef up its surrounding Hawks coverage as the flagship station. New team GM Travis Schlenk has begun a new weekly segment (this week, to coincide with the season opener) which will be on the morning show with John Fricke (the former CNN sports anchor) and Hugh Douglas each Tuesday. This is in addition to head coach Mike Budenholzer appearing each Thursday on the midday show with Rick Kamla and John Michaels, and team CEO Steve Koonin appearing each Friday afternoon during the Dukes & Bell Show with Carl Dukes and Mike Bell.
CHARLOTTE: WFNZ The Fan has extended the contract of former Panthers lineman Frank Garcia to continue as midday co-host with Kyle Bailey.
LEXINGTON: Congrats to Darren Headrick, who has joined the University of Kentucky Sports Network Team and will handle play-by-play for baseball and women's basketball.
Bryan Donaldson of the Twins, Dannon Hulskotter of the Vikings, and Ryan Tanke of the Timberwolves will also participate. At press time, it was not certain who will participate from the Wild.
The announcement of this event mentions that the Twin Cities market is actually the smallest market in the U.S. with six major league pro sports teams, a Division I sports program, and a minor league team.
What makes this such a wonderful event for the fans is that the event is free and open to the public.
The trend of putting sports radio shows on TV continues going into 2018. CBS Sports Network will pick up The Jim Rome Show starting Jan. 2nd from Noon to 3 PM ET.
NEW YORK: Although nothing was done about Fox Sports hiding most of the American League Championship Series on FS1, the network finally gave in and allowed YES Network to begin its local post-game coverage to begin shortly after the end of the game, starting with Monday's (10/16) Game 3.
During the Division Series and for Games 1 and 2 against Houston, YES had to wait at least 30 minutes after the end of the game for FS1's postgame show to conclude. Incredibly, YES Network was forced to wait roughly 90 minutes after the end of the Yankees' clinching win over Cleveland in the ALDS to begin its post-game show well after the fact.
As bad as it is that Fox buries playoff games on FS1, it's even more of an outrage that Fox doesn't allow its over the air stations in and around the participating markets to air the games.
LOS ANGELES: Former NFL standout Eric Davis, who appears on various FS1 programming, has joined KSPN 710 to co-host afternoons with Marcellus Wiley and Kelvin Washington. This is in addition to Davis being a part of the Rams radio pre and postgame shows along with Travis Rodgers and Kirk Morrison.
This Sunday (10/22) has the L.A. market getting "only" three telecasts, with two of them being a Rams then Raiders doubleheader. The Rams meet the AZ Cardinals in London on Sunday. After years of hyping the London telecasts, including several national telecasts starting at 9:30 AM ET, the NFL knew they couldn't get away with what would have been a 6:30 AM local time telecast for both teams.
As a result, this will merely be one of the early regional games, with a 10 AM local time start in L.A. and Phoenix. This time around, the game will only be seen in a few northwest markets beyond Southern California (although San Diego is scheduled at press time to get New Orleans at Green Bay) and Arizona. Sam Rosen and Ronde Barber will call that game.
The other games will be CBS games, with the early primary game of Carolina at Chicago (moved over from Fox to CBS) followed by L.A. getting Denver vs. the Chargers as the market's only late game. Even San Diego gets the Chargers as its only late telecast.
ATLANTA: 92.9 The Game continues to beef up its surrounding Hawks coverage as the flagship station. New team GM Travis Schlenk has begun a new weekly segment (this week, to coincide with the season opener) which will be on the morning show with John Fricke (the former CNN sports anchor) and Hugh Douglas each Tuesday. This is in addition to head coach Mike Budenholzer appearing each Thursday on the midday show with Rick Kamla and John Michaels, and team CEO Steve Koonin appearing each Friday afternoon during the Dukes & Bell Show with Carl Dukes and Mike Bell.
CHARLOTTE: WFNZ The Fan has extended the contract of former Panthers lineman Frank Garcia to continue as midday co-host with Kyle Bailey.
LEXINGTON: Congrats to Darren Headrick, who has joined the University of Kentucky Sports Network Team and will handle play-by-play for baseball and women's basketball.
Thursday, October 12, 2017
Big Deal For Boston Sports Radio
It's looking more and more like the proposed merger between CBS Radio and Entercom could actually happen, and it could very well be approved within the next six months.
As part of the process, Entercom will need to divest itself of several large radio stations due to ownership restrictions in some key markets. For sports radio, there is no radio market matching the significance of Boston, which has had fierce competition between its two sports stations, WEEI-FM and WBZ-FM. Both stations have consistently finished in the top 10 overall in the market, giving Boston the largest sports talk radio combined audience in the country.
This merger would mean that Entercom would then own both of those stations in Boston. Our thinking was that Entercom would choose between keeping them both in place as a means to prevent any serious competition, or perhaps roll one into a local sports powerhouse while putting national sports feeds on the other. This is already the case as WEEI-AM 850 is primarily ESPN Radio.
However, as a means to assure approval of the merger, Entercom has determined that its best course of action is to get rid of "overflow" stations in several markets. Part of that decision is to plan to sell off WBZ-FM Sports Hub in Boston.
WBZ-FM is the flagship station of the Patriots and Bruins. Usually the contract to broadcast a team is with the broadcast ownership group and not the station. This "merger", which is more like a takeover of CBS Radio by Entercom, is being reviewed and eventually approved by the FCC. No word yet as to whether or not Entercom would also assume the Patriots and Bruins contracts and be able to move those broadcasts to another of its Boston stations or if these contracts will be part of the sale.
What happens with those contracts, either way, will have a huge impact on Boston radio.
In the event that the buyer of WBZ-FM also receives the Patriots and Bruins contracts, the stage is set for that buyer to maintain the large sports talk audience and play-by-play and remain as direct competition for WEEI-FM. If the team contracts are not included, continuing as a sports station becomes less appealing but still possible.
If the new owners decide to go with a different format, then it would mean that WEEI-FM could gain as much as double its current audience. Even if it doesn't gain very much, it will have wiped out its strong competitor.
Entercom has other sports stations shown within its list of tentative stations around the country to divest, including KFNQ-AM Seattle and KHTK Sacramento, which could impact sports radio in those two markets. The difference is that no other market has two sports stations as strong as the pair in Boston, nor are other markets involving the possibility of single ownership of more than one sports station.
As we prepare for the MLB League Championship Series in both leagues, it's worthy of note that Fox Sports continues to shaft their telecasts, putting the majority of them on Fox Sports 1 and depriving many fans around the country the opportunity to see these post-season games.
At press time, the only one of the first five ALCS games scheduled for Fox Sports is Game 2 on Saturday (10/14), which is a late afternoon game (4 PM ET) going up against a ton of college football games. Worse yet, Fox still does not allow its over the air stations in New York and Houston to show the games, leaving a lot of fans unable to find or watch these games.
Sure, it's the same with TBS and many casual fans not knowing where to find the National League games. That's the fault of MLB for allowing this to happen.
The report earlier this week from Forbes Magazine shows that local MLB telecasts did well overall this season. Nielsen Media reports show that 12 of the regional sports networks which air MLB teams finished #1 in their respective markets on game nights. Along with those 12 teams, the Mets and the Angels finished #2 in their respective markets only because the Yankees and Dodgers were in the top spot.
This, despite a 38% ratings decline for Detroit Tigers telecasts as a result of their poor season. Fox Sports' regional networks benefitted the most, since they coincidentally own the rights for the Indians (defending American League champs), as well as the Twins, Brewers, and Diamondbacks, each of whom had much better than expected seasons.
We'll sit back and wait for Fox Sports to twist that into how their regional networks did all of those great things and not make it look like the teams' play had anything to do with it.
A couple of surprising announcements from ESPN this week. Looks even their staple of college hoops is being impacted by their financial cutbacks. This college basketball season will start without their usual 24 hour marathon of games.
Granted, scheduling games that start at 1 AM or even 7 AM local time is an inconvenience to the ticket holding fans as well as local broadcast outlets, but clearly there are schools willing to do so in order to gain the added exposure and be a part of this. That will be the reason for doing this, but it's curious that this happens after all these years during a time when the network is making financial cutbacks.
At the same time, the network hired away NHL expert Greg Wyshynski to increase its NHL coverage, adding fuel to the speculation that ESPN wants the NHL back after all these years. Doing so would mean less time for college basketball (see above paragraph), and dropping MLB in return would (eventually) leave ESPN with nothing from mid-June (NBA and NHL finals) until late August college football games.
CHICAGO: Even though WGN 720 just lost out in its bid to recapture the Bears broadcasts, the station plans to continue its Bears related programming. In addition to continuing its post-game call-in show (even though it doesn't broadcast the games), the station has added Mike Ditka as a Bears analyst during its morning and afternoon shows (not sports specific) on Mondays and Fridays, even including the post-season.
NEW YORK: Even though the games will be bumped for the Yankees post-season, the New Jersey Devils have just started their 13th season on WFAN, adding WFAN.com to stream the radio broadcasts. Play-by-play voice Matt Loughlin will be joined by Glenn 'Chico' Resch as the new analyst (replacing Sherry Ross).
CLEVELAND: As the NBA regular season begins next week, the Cavaliers broadcasts are now simulcast on both WTAM 1100 and WMMS-FM, with John Michael and Jim Chones beginning their 7th season as the broadcast team. In addition, both home and road games will be broadcast on in Spanish on a different station.
PHILADELPHIA: SportsRadio 94 WIP is planning to broadcast a high school football game on Thanksgiving Day, with midday hosts Joe DeCamara and Jon Ritchie on the call and none other than Howard Eskin acting as sideline reporter. The station is letting the listeners determine which of seven area games to broadcast, with voting taking place through October 31st.
ROCHESTER: WRSB 97.5 The Team is disbanding after this week. Starting next Monday (10/16) the station will become a Spanish music station.
As part of the process, Entercom will need to divest itself of several large radio stations due to ownership restrictions in some key markets. For sports radio, there is no radio market matching the significance of Boston, which has had fierce competition between its two sports stations, WEEI-FM and WBZ-FM. Both stations have consistently finished in the top 10 overall in the market, giving Boston the largest sports talk radio combined audience in the country.
This merger would mean that Entercom would then own both of those stations in Boston. Our thinking was that Entercom would choose between keeping them both in place as a means to prevent any serious competition, or perhaps roll one into a local sports powerhouse while putting national sports feeds on the other. This is already the case as WEEI-AM 850 is primarily ESPN Radio.
However, as a means to assure approval of the merger, Entercom has determined that its best course of action is to get rid of "overflow" stations in several markets. Part of that decision is to plan to sell off WBZ-FM Sports Hub in Boston.
WBZ-FM is the flagship station of the Patriots and Bruins. Usually the contract to broadcast a team is with the broadcast ownership group and not the station. This "merger", which is more like a takeover of CBS Radio by Entercom, is being reviewed and eventually approved by the FCC. No word yet as to whether or not Entercom would also assume the Patriots and Bruins contracts and be able to move those broadcasts to another of its Boston stations or if these contracts will be part of the sale.
What happens with those contracts, either way, will have a huge impact on Boston radio.
In the event that the buyer of WBZ-FM also receives the Patriots and Bruins contracts, the stage is set for that buyer to maintain the large sports talk audience and play-by-play and remain as direct competition for WEEI-FM. If the team contracts are not included, continuing as a sports station becomes less appealing but still possible.
If the new owners decide to go with a different format, then it would mean that WEEI-FM could gain as much as double its current audience. Even if it doesn't gain very much, it will have wiped out its strong competitor.
Entercom has other sports stations shown within its list of tentative stations around the country to divest, including KFNQ-AM Seattle and KHTK Sacramento, which could impact sports radio in those two markets. The difference is that no other market has two sports stations as strong as the pair in Boston, nor are other markets involving the possibility of single ownership of more than one sports station.
As we prepare for the MLB League Championship Series in both leagues, it's worthy of note that Fox Sports continues to shaft their telecasts, putting the majority of them on Fox Sports 1 and depriving many fans around the country the opportunity to see these post-season games.
At press time, the only one of the first five ALCS games scheduled for Fox Sports is Game 2 on Saturday (10/14), which is a late afternoon game (4 PM ET) going up against a ton of college football games. Worse yet, Fox still does not allow its over the air stations in New York and Houston to show the games, leaving a lot of fans unable to find or watch these games.
Sure, it's the same with TBS and many casual fans not knowing where to find the National League games. That's the fault of MLB for allowing this to happen.
The report earlier this week from Forbes Magazine shows that local MLB telecasts did well overall this season. Nielsen Media reports show that 12 of the regional sports networks which air MLB teams finished #1 in their respective markets on game nights. Along with those 12 teams, the Mets and the Angels finished #2 in their respective markets only because the Yankees and Dodgers were in the top spot.
This, despite a 38% ratings decline for Detroit Tigers telecasts as a result of their poor season. Fox Sports' regional networks benefitted the most, since they coincidentally own the rights for the Indians (defending American League champs), as well as the Twins, Brewers, and Diamondbacks, each of whom had much better than expected seasons.
We'll sit back and wait for Fox Sports to twist that into how their regional networks did all of those great things and not make it look like the teams' play had anything to do with it.
A couple of surprising announcements from ESPN this week. Looks even their staple of college hoops is being impacted by their financial cutbacks. This college basketball season will start without their usual 24 hour marathon of games.
Granted, scheduling games that start at 1 AM or even 7 AM local time is an inconvenience to the ticket holding fans as well as local broadcast outlets, but clearly there are schools willing to do so in order to gain the added exposure and be a part of this. That will be the reason for doing this, but it's curious that this happens after all these years during a time when the network is making financial cutbacks.
At the same time, the network hired away NHL expert Greg Wyshynski to increase its NHL coverage, adding fuel to the speculation that ESPN wants the NHL back after all these years. Doing so would mean less time for college basketball (see above paragraph), and dropping MLB in return would (eventually) leave ESPN with nothing from mid-June (NBA and NHL finals) until late August college football games.
CHICAGO: Even though WGN 720 just lost out in its bid to recapture the Bears broadcasts, the station plans to continue its Bears related programming. In addition to continuing its post-game call-in show (even though it doesn't broadcast the games), the station has added Mike Ditka as a Bears analyst during its morning and afternoon shows (not sports specific) on Mondays and Fridays, even including the post-season.
NEW YORK: Even though the games will be bumped for the Yankees post-season, the New Jersey Devils have just started their 13th season on WFAN, adding WFAN.com to stream the radio broadcasts. Play-by-play voice Matt Loughlin will be joined by Glenn 'Chico' Resch as the new analyst (replacing Sherry Ross).
CLEVELAND: As the NBA regular season begins next week, the Cavaliers broadcasts are now simulcast on both WTAM 1100 and WMMS-FM, with John Michael and Jim Chones beginning their 7th season as the broadcast team. In addition, both home and road games will be broadcast on in Spanish on a different station.
PHILADELPHIA: SportsRadio 94 WIP is planning to broadcast a high school football game on Thanksgiving Day, with midday hosts Joe DeCamara and Jon Ritchie on the call and none other than Howard Eskin acting as sideline reporter. The station is letting the listeners determine which of seven area games to broadcast, with voting taking place through October 31st.
ROCHESTER: WRSB 97.5 The Team is disbanding after this week. Starting next Monday (10/16) the station will become a Spanish music station.
Friday, October 6, 2017
All Week It's A Numbers Game
A lot of ratings and audience numbers to examine this week. Hard to tell if it was because of the Yankees being in it or if the Wild Card game ratings are rising in general, but it was no surprise to see the higher audience levels (58% increase) for Tuesday (10/3) night's telecast of the Yankees vs. Twins in the American League game on ESPN.
We do wonder, however, how much having the game shown on ESPN factored in. Too many casual fans still have no idea to check TBS, especially since they no longer show games every Sunday afternoon during the regular season. And, FS1 doesn't have enough of a "carry over" audience, like ESPN does, for its programming.
Having the Yankees in the ALDS with most of the games merely on FS1 will give us an indication. Hard to believe that, with the possibility of ESPN not retaining its MLB package moving forward, the Fox continues to keep MLB in the background until the World Series. The Yankees vs. Indians should be a huge draw, but may not be. At the same time, it is astounding that Fox does not, at the very least, allow the local Fox stations in the participating teams' markets to also air the games. That's a lot of New York and Cleveland households that won't know where to find the games.
On the NFL side, we checked the Los Angeles market ratings for this past Sunday (10/1) and, sure enough, the Oakland at Denver doubleheader game on CBS had nearly three times the audience rating and share that the Los Angeles Chargers game against Philadelphia did on Channel 13. In fact, of the 6 NFL games televised live in L.A. on Sunday, only the Miami vs. New Orleans telecast from London, which kicked off at 6:30 AM local time, had a lower audience than the "local" Chargers did.
It was the Rams game from Dallas on Fox Channel 11 which more than doubled the Pittsburgh vs. Baltimore game on CBS in the regular "early games" slot. NBC's Sunday Night Football telecast with Indianapolis vs. Seattle was actually the ratings winner for the entire day.
This coming Sunday (10/8), the L.A. market again gets a full doubleheader from both Fox and CBS and the NFL seems to be letting L.A. ignore the market rules it still enforces in New York City.
It so happens that the Rams game at home against Seattle has been flexed over to CBS, which means that CBS in L.A. gets a Chargers and then Rams doubleheader. The Chargers early game will actually air on sister station KCAL Channel 9 at 10 AM with the Rams game on KCBS Channel 2 at 1:25 PM.
Although some fans think that the Chargers are being demoted because this will be the second consecutive Sunday that they will appear on a "second" local channel, it is really due to contractual obligations.
With the Rams and the Chargers each home teams, Fox and CBS are contractually obligated to show both games in their entirety. Using another channel prevents a situation where a weather delay and/or overtime could have the first game run over past the start of the second game.
For this Sunday, while CBS in L.A. brings the Chargers and Rams doubleheader (although on separate channels), Fox will still get to air two games in the market, going with Carolina at Detroit (instead of Arizona vs. Philadelphia) first and then the national doubleheader game of Green Bay and Dallas. Joe Buck will call that game. While it's not a surprise he calls that NFL game in particular, it does not speak well for Fox Sports that Buck is not calling the Yankees vs. Indians game on FS1 on Sunday night.
Meanwhile, the mid-August to mid-September Nielsen radio ratings have been released. Let's look at a few of the key bigger markets.
In New York, WFAN AM-FM The Fan went up .5 in the ratings, finishing at #7 overall in the market. Certainly an expected rise with being #1 at night with Yankees broadcasts and the curiosity surrounding the resignation of Craig Carton from the morning show. The two Boston sports stations remain strong, as expected, with both WEEI-FM and WBZ-FM Sports Hub showing half point increases in overall audience. WEEI-FM came in #4 in the market with WBZ-FM at #8. Both stations should stay strong as the Red Sox begin the post-season and the Patriots season is in full swing.
The Chicago Cubs are making winners out of WSCR The Score 670 again, with the station showing up at #4 in the market for its best ever showing and showing three times the overall audience of WMVP ESPN 1000. That figures to rise during the current ratings period as the Cubs (for which WSCR is the flagship station) begin their post-season run.
You can tell its Cowboys season by the sports radio ratings for Dallas, as all three stations went up during the month. KTCK-AM The Ticket leads the three, coming in at #14 in the market this time. In Atlanta, WZGC-FM The Game rose an impressive .7 of a ratings point to #16 overall. The Eagles season getting underway has impacted Philadelphia's stations, as WIP-FM rose 1.1 ratings points (and 1.9 ratings points from two months prior) to #5 overall in the market. At the same time, WPEN-FM ESPN rose .3 finishing at #18.
The Twins run to the post-season and the Vikings starting helped KFXN The Fan rise to #2 in the morning and placed the station in the top five in the Twin Cities with a .6 of a ratings point rise. Baltimore's WJZ-FM rose 1.3 ratings points and into the top five stations there.
Although not a full-time sports station, Cleveland's WTAM 1100 benefitted big time from the Indians broadcasts. The 1.3 ratings points rise includes them being the #1 station during both afternoons and evenings.
Perhaps the biggest shocker is the San Diego sports station ratings, considering that the Chargers are gone and the Padres were seemingly eliminated months ago. Yet, both XPRS-AM and KLSD-AM both rose .3 of a ratings point. Even though neither station so much as cracked the top 20 in the market, this is still a surprise.
In other ratings news, it's interesting that ESPN Sunday Night Baseball was up roughly 8% this season compared with the 2016 season.
Meanwhile, ESPN continues to get ready for the upcoming NBA season. With Doris Burke moving into a game analyst role, the network has added Paul Pierce to its roster of studio analysts as a result of his work on their NBA Finals coverage the past two years.
ESPN also regained the rights to Formula 1 racing with a new multi-year deal which begins in 2018. The family of networks will air all 21 races, with the majority slotted in for Sunday mornings on ESPN2. Two of the races will air on ABC. This deal is a blow to NBCSN, which retains NASCAR and Indy Car affiliations.
The hunch from here is that these networks will be locking horns again when both the NHL and MLB contracts are in negotiations. ESPN appears to be not overly interested in retaining MLB and could wind up indirectly trading places with NBC by giving up baseball and regaining hockey.
It is very interesting that ESPN sent out an e-mail blast on Thursday (10/5) promoting NHL.TV and the hockey package, given that it has been years since they lost the NHL rights to NBC and didn't seem to care.
The saddest sports media news is the passing of long time NHL voice Dave Strader this past weekend at the age of 62. The highly regarded Strader called games for NBC and NBCSN in addition to having been the voice of the Dallas Stars. He will be missed.
BOSTON: After a long interview process with more than 200 applicants, the Bruins waited until the last minute to select Judd Sirott from Chicago as their new radio play-by-play voice. Sirott replaces Dave Goucher who left the Bruins after 17 seasons to become the TV voice of the Las Vegas Golden Knights. The 48 year-old Sirott comes from WGN Radio Chicago where he has handled studio coverage (and occasional filling in on play-by-play) for Blackhawks games as well as having been on the Cubs broadcast team several years ago when they had the broadcast rights.
The Bruins had auditioned four candidates during the exhibition season before making their choice. Ironically, Sirott's Bruins play-by-play debut for the team's opener on Thursday (10/5) was moved to WZLX 100.7 because of the Patriots game airing on The Sports Hub 98.5.
CHICAGO: The move of Judd Sirott from WGN Radio to the Bruins play-by-play role resulted in WGN bringing in Chris Boden to handle its studio coverage for its Blackhawks broadcasts. Boden had handled much of CSN Chicago's (now NBC Sports Chicago) Blackhawks studio hosting during his 10 years with the network which ended suddenly in August. Look for Boden to eventually get a more expanded role at WGN.
WASHINGTON D.C.: After struggling to get sufficient coverage for its broadcasts last season, the Capitals and WJFK-FM The Fan have made amends just in time for this season and have resumed airing the games. John Wlaaton returns for his 7th season on play-by-play with Ken Sabourin starting his 15th season as analyst. The games will continue to be broadcast on WFED 1500, which aired the games with little fanfare and a low signal all of last season.
LOS ANGELES: The Clippers have hired Bruce Bowen as their TV analyst to work along side Ralph Lawler this season, replacing Michael Smith who had been doing TV and radio for the previous 19 seasons. No word (as of press time) as to whether or not Bowen would be able to continue as a studio analyst with ESPN.
St. LOUIS: KFNS 590 and morning show co-host Jim The Cat Hayes have made amends days after Hayes was reported to have left the station. Hayes also continues his role with Fox Sports Midwest.
We do wonder, however, how much having the game shown on ESPN factored in. Too many casual fans still have no idea to check TBS, especially since they no longer show games every Sunday afternoon during the regular season. And, FS1 doesn't have enough of a "carry over" audience, like ESPN does, for its programming.
Having the Yankees in the ALDS with most of the games merely on FS1 will give us an indication. Hard to believe that, with the possibility of ESPN not retaining its MLB package moving forward, the Fox continues to keep MLB in the background until the World Series. The Yankees vs. Indians should be a huge draw, but may not be. At the same time, it is astounding that Fox does not, at the very least, allow the local Fox stations in the participating teams' markets to also air the games. That's a lot of New York and Cleveland households that won't know where to find the games.
On the NFL side, we checked the Los Angeles market ratings for this past Sunday (10/1) and, sure enough, the Oakland at Denver doubleheader game on CBS had nearly three times the audience rating and share that the Los Angeles Chargers game against Philadelphia did on Channel 13. In fact, of the 6 NFL games televised live in L.A. on Sunday, only the Miami vs. New Orleans telecast from London, which kicked off at 6:30 AM local time, had a lower audience than the "local" Chargers did.
It was the Rams game from Dallas on Fox Channel 11 which more than doubled the Pittsburgh vs. Baltimore game on CBS in the regular "early games" slot. NBC's Sunday Night Football telecast with Indianapolis vs. Seattle was actually the ratings winner for the entire day.
This coming Sunday (10/8), the L.A. market again gets a full doubleheader from both Fox and CBS and the NFL seems to be letting L.A. ignore the market rules it still enforces in New York City.
It so happens that the Rams game at home against Seattle has been flexed over to CBS, which means that CBS in L.A. gets a Chargers and then Rams doubleheader. The Chargers early game will actually air on sister station KCAL Channel 9 at 10 AM with the Rams game on KCBS Channel 2 at 1:25 PM.
Although some fans think that the Chargers are being demoted because this will be the second consecutive Sunday that they will appear on a "second" local channel, it is really due to contractual obligations.
With the Rams and the Chargers each home teams, Fox and CBS are contractually obligated to show both games in their entirety. Using another channel prevents a situation where a weather delay and/or overtime could have the first game run over past the start of the second game.
For this Sunday, while CBS in L.A. brings the Chargers and Rams doubleheader (although on separate channels), Fox will still get to air two games in the market, going with Carolina at Detroit (instead of Arizona vs. Philadelphia) first and then the national doubleheader game of Green Bay and Dallas. Joe Buck will call that game. While it's not a surprise he calls that NFL game in particular, it does not speak well for Fox Sports that Buck is not calling the Yankees vs. Indians game on FS1 on Sunday night.
Meanwhile, the mid-August to mid-September Nielsen radio ratings have been released. Let's look at a few of the key bigger markets.
In New York, WFAN AM-FM The Fan went up .5 in the ratings, finishing at #7 overall in the market. Certainly an expected rise with being #1 at night with Yankees broadcasts and the curiosity surrounding the resignation of Craig Carton from the morning show. The two Boston sports stations remain strong, as expected, with both WEEI-FM and WBZ-FM Sports Hub showing half point increases in overall audience. WEEI-FM came in #4 in the market with WBZ-FM at #8. Both stations should stay strong as the Red Sox begin the post-season and the Patriots season is in full swing.
The Chicago Cubs are making winners out of WSCR The Score 670 again, with the station showing up at #4 in the market for its best ever showing and showing three times the overall audience of WMVP ESPN 1000. That figures to rise during the current ratings period as the Cubs (for which WSCR is the flagship station) begin their post-season run.
You can tell its Cowboys season by the sports radio ratings for Dallas, as all three stations went up during the month. KTCK-AM The Ticket leads the three, coming in at #14 in the market this time. In Atlanta, WZGC-FM The Game rose an impressive .7 of a ratings point to #16 overall. The Eagles season getting underway has impacted Philadelphia's stations, as WIP-FM rose 1.1 ratings points (and 1.9 ratings points from two months prior) to #5 overall in the market. At the same time, WPEN-FM ESPN rose .3 finishing at #18.
The Twins run to the post-season and the Vikings starting helped KFXN The Fan rise to #2 in the morning and placed the station in the top five in the Twin Cities with a .6 of a ratings point rise. Baltimore's WJZ-FM rose 1.3 ratings points and into the top five stations there.
Although not a full-time sports station, Cleveland's WTAM 1100 benefitted big time from the Indians broadcasts. The 1.3 ratings points rise includes them being the #1 station during both afternoons and evenings.
Perhaps the biggest shocker is the San Diego sports station ratings, considering that the Chargers are gone and the Padres were seemingly eliminated months ago. Yet, both XPRS-AM and KLSD-AM both rose .3 of a ratings point. Even though neither station so much as cracked the top 20 in the market, this is still a surprise.
In other ratings news, it's interesting that ESPN Sunday Night Baseball was up roughly 8% this season compared with the 2016 season.
Meanwhile, ESPN continues to get ready for the upcoming NBA season. With Doris Burke moving into a game analyst role, the network has added Paul Pierce to its roster of studio analysts as a result of his work on their NBA Finals coverage the past two years.
ESPN also regained the rights to Formula 1 racing with a new multi-year deal which begins in 2018. The family of networks will air all 21 races, with the majority slotted in for Sunday mornings on ESPN2. Two of the races will air on ABC. This deal is a blow to NBCSN, which retains NASCAR and Indy Car affiliations.
The hunch from here is that these networks will be locking horns again when both the NHL and MLB contracts are in negotiations. ESPN appears to be not overly interested in retaining MLB and could wind up indirectly trading places with NBC by giving up baseball and regaining hockey.
It is very interesting that ESPN sent out an e-mail blast on Thursday (10/5) promoting NHL.TV and the hockey package, given that it has been years since they lost the NHL rights to NBC and didn't seem to care.
The saddest sports media news is the passing of long time NHL voice Dave Strader this past weekend at the age of 62. The highly regarded Strader called games for NBC and NBCSN in addition to having been the voice of the Dallas Stars. He will be missed.
BOSTON: After a long interview process with more than 200 applicants, the Bruins waited until the last minute to select Judd Sirott from Chicago as their new radio play-by-play voice. Sirott replaces Dave Goucher who left the Bruins after 17 seasons to become the TV voice of the Las Vegas Golden Knights. The 48 year-old Sirott comes from WGN Radio Chicago where he has handled studio coverage (and occasional filling in on play-by-play) for Blackhawks games as well as having been on the Cubs broadcast team several years ago when they had the broadcast rights.
The Bruins had auditioned four candidates during the exhibition season before making their choice. Ironically, Sirott's Bruins play-by-play debut for the team's opener on Thursday (10/5) was moved to WZLX 100.7 because of the Patriots game airing on The Sports Hub 98.5.
CHICAGO: The move of Judd Sirott from WGN Radio to the Bruins play-by-play role resulted in WGN bringing in Chris Boden to handle its studio coverage for its Blackhawks broadcasts. Boden had handled much of CSN Chicago's (now NBC Sports Chicago) Blackhawks studio hosting during his 10 years with the network which ended suddenly in August. Look for Boden to eventually get a more expanded role at WGN.
WASHINGTON D.C.: After struggling to get sufficient coverage for its broadcasts last season, the Capitals and WJFK-FM The Fan have made amends just in time for this season and have resumed airing the games. John Wlaaton returns for his 7th season on play-by-play with Ken Sabourin starting his 15th season as analyst. The games will continue to be broadcast on WFED 1500, which aired the games with little fanfare and a low signal all of last season.
LOS ANGELES: The Clippers have hired Bruce Bowen as their TV analyst to work along side Ralph Lawler this season, replacing Michael Smith who had been doing TV and radio for the previous 19 seasons. No word (as of press time) as to whether or not Bowen would be able to continue as a studio analyst with ESPN.
St. LOUIS: KFNS 590 and morning show co-host Jim The Cat Hayes have made amends days after Hayes was reported to have left the station. Hayes also continues his role with Fox Sports Midwest.
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