Oakland Listeners Take It Up The A's

How disappointing that the Oakland A's are so frustrated with their radio broadcast situation that they couldn't even create their own deal with a radio station for the new season. The A's have struggled to be on the air on several occasions over the years, including starting one season on a college station.

The team was "unable to come to terms" with KTRB 860 which carried A's broadcasts last season. We don't know whether the station no longer wanted the broadcasts since they did not fit the format, or if the A's were not willing to make the investment to purchase the time. That doesn't really matter.

Instead, the team has announced that in the Oakland area, the only way (as of now) to hear the broadcasts will be to stream them. A's officials were quoted as saying they think this is the way to go by streaming instead of over the air. It may be the way to go to help the bank account instead.

As one who grew up before cable and internet and depended on radio for hundreds of hours of live baseball every year, this is especially disturbing. That doesn't even count my years as a radio sportscaster when radio was king of sports coverage and how much this news hurts.

Although the team claims streaming is the way to go, Bay Area listeners will continue to have the Spanish broadcasts on KIOI 1010. It would be interesting to get an explanation as to why Spanish listeners still get radio broadcasts but those that do not speak Spanish do not.

The lack of an English broadcast is only in the Oakland area. The 10 stations on the A's radio network, including KHTK Sacramento, KFPT 790 Fresno, and KESP 970 in Modesto, will continue to carry the regular broadcasts. Of course, baseball fans that subscribe to At Bat will be able to hear Ken Korach and Vince Cotroneo on play-by-play as usual.

Only fans in the immediate Oakland area would need to stream the primary English broadcast.

One more irony to the situation is that KGMZ-FM The Game, which aired the A's from 2011 to 2018, is finally enjoying respectable ratings after struggling against KNBR 680 for so many years.

The fear is that other teams hurting for radio deals would start going only to streaming, and consequently provide radio listeners with still ANOTHER reason that they no longer need to listen.

Meanwhile, TV ratings for the current NBA season continue to be cause for concern. Ratings for the first half of the season show the local RSN's down roughly 13%, while national telecast ratings have dipped about 12% overall. Although the San Antonio Spurs have the highest local ratings this season, those figures are down approximately 20% from last season.

Another pain point for the NBA ratings is that the N Y Knicks and Brooklyn Nets are two of the seven lowest rated telecasts this season. The Atlanta Hawks ratings have actually increased by more than 48% this season. However, the Hawks' ratings are also in the bottom seven. (Memphis, Utah, and Toronto market ratings were not available for this research.)


NBCSN has decided to observe International Women's Day on March 8th with an all female crew calling the St. Louis at Chicago NHL telecast. Kate Scott will handle play-by-play with Kendall Coyne-Schofield and A.J. Mleczko (both Olympic Gold Medalists) as analysts. Kathryn Tappen will anchor the studio coverage.


CHICAGO: The Marquee Network signed on the air on Saturday (2/22) as the Chicago Cubs network, airing the team's spring training opener, and with limited availability. So far, subscribers of AT&T, DirecTV, and other providers offering the service, have not seen an increase in monthly fees, but they are mostly under existing contracts.

WGN-TV, which does not currently have any baseball on its schedule for the first time in more than 70 years, is returning to live local sports. The station signed to air 24 Chicago Fire soccer telecasts starting in March. This is all that is available to them, since the Blackhawks, Bulls, and White Sox are all exclusive to NBC Sports Chicago after last season, depriving WGN-TV of its year round sports packages.

PHILADELPHIA: Nothing official as of press time but the word is that former Phillies GM Ruben Amaro is being signed as a studio analyst for Phillies telecasts on NBC Sports Philadelphia in time for the regular season. Adding to the speculation of Amaro becoming a member of the local media was Amaro's recent appearance on Angelo Cataldi's morning show on WIP-FM. The sports station is part of the recently announced shared content plan.

KANSAS CITY: Fox Sports Kansas City has reportedly extended its deal for Royals telecasts for at least 10  years after its deal with the team had expired last fall. This figured to happen, given the local situation. The Royals need a TV partner to provide millions in revenue and exposure of all of their games, while Fox Sports needs the content for its spring and summer programming.

The network will continue to provide live fall and winter content airing selected Oklahoma City Thunder and St. Louis Blues telecasts.

ATLANTA: Fox Sports South and Southeast has brought in Kelly Crull as sideline reporter for its Braves telecasts. Crull comes over from NBC Sports Chicago and similar duties on Chicago Cubs telecasts.