If Sports Is About Competition, What About Sports Radio?

We don't need still another example of what's wrong with radio today, but the sister sports talk stations in Indianapolis have provided one. First, it should be stated that David Wood is an excellent radio executive, as his role of overseeing a cluster of stations within this market prove beyond a doubt. It's just that the corporate decision to add to his duties is the example. Wood has also (the important word here) been tapped to oversee programming on both Sports Talk 93.5 AND 107.5 The Fan. 

 

Let's get this straight. We have two stations going after the same audience of sports fans all day and all night long. Now we have the same management person overseeing them both. How ironic that stations which are based around sports and competition each have the same leader. I suppose that if New York City were to have the same General Manager making acquisitions for both the Yankees and the Mets that there would be outrage from fans filling up the sports stations with content.

You would think that the parent company of these stations would look at this much differently. Imagine assigning separate management responsibilities to different people, while assigning the same budget and opportunities. Whichever delivers the highest ratings gets a bonus or incentive. I suppose that's asking too much these days.

The reach of the Las Vegas Raiders shows during the preseason with the availability of the local telecasts. Their exhibition game telecasts, as called by Beth Mowins and Rich Gannon, are being seen well beyond the Las Vegas and Salt Lake City market. In addition to being shown on KRON-TV San Francisco (understandable, at least for now), their exhibition games also air in both Anchorage and Fairbanks Alaska, Honolulu, and in Los Angeles. 

Speaking of preseason telecasts, the duplication was amazing last weekend (8/21) when the Dallas Cowboys played the Houston Texans. A total of 10 TV markets within Texas had both the Cowboys and Texans telecasts available to them at the same time. The Cowboys telecasts are also seen in Oklahoma City as well as two markets in Arkansas and two in Louisiana.

DENVER: Rachael Vigil has joined KKFN 104.3 The Fan as a digital host and producer, coming over from a similar role with the Western Athletic Conference.

 

 

Field of Dreams, But Nightmare For Baseball Fans

If only Fox Sports hadn't treated Thursday's (8/12) Field of Dreams telecast like it was a movie. Would have been nice, and helpful to keep baseball fans up to date. Fox is supposed to be the big player for Major League Baseball. 

 

Perhaps it is being a White Sox fan that added to the frustration, but I would imagine that other avid baseball fans felt it too. Here was Fox Sports, which will be airing the World Series again this season and has NFL telecasts coming up, forgetting to use their usual scroll of scores and updates at the bottom of the screen for the entire night. Making it even worse, there was no mention of scores of other games in progress, or that had been played earlier in the day.

 

The "earlier in the day" was significant to this "Dreams" game. Cleveland, which is a distant second to the White Sox in the A.L. Central, had already lost during the afternoon, raising the White Sox division lead to 11 games at game time. At the time, this was the largest lead the White Sox held over Cleveland all season. That was news that White Sox fans wanted to hear. Instead, we got Joe Buck saying that the "lead was 10 and 1/2 games going in to today's action". Did the lead network for MLB not know there were other games taking place?

 

Early in the game, the White Sox scored on a homerun by Jose Abreu. It so happened, as many White Sox fans knew, that this homerun tied Abreu for #3 on the franchise's all-time homerun list. Given the history of the franchise, which played a role in the movie Field of Dreams, this was a big deal. Yet, zero mention of that accomplishment from Joe Buck or anyone else on the telecast.

 

But the horrible lack of information was not just aimed at White Sox fans. While I can understand not having a camera for the bullpens, we were rarely told which pitcher was warming up for either team. Even worse was a pinch-hitting appearance by Danny Mendick of the White Sox in the all important 9th inning. 

 

As a Sox fan, I had no idea that Mendick was on the active roster. There was zero mention on the telecast about how and why he was in the game. (It so happened that MLB, for some strange reason, allowed both teams to add a 27th player. Until finding this out on my own, I was falsely worried that there was an injury I hadn't heard about.) Joe Buck and company didn't even mention who Mendick was hitting for. Sheesh.

 

However, Fox was ready with all kinds of graphics and video about the movie Field of Dreams throughout the telecast. It's OK to do that under these circumstances, but there is no excuse for not even making an effort to inform the fans of what's going on.

 

The Pittsburgh Penguins will have Josh Getzoff calling all games on radio starting with the upcoming season. Getzoff called the team's road games over the previous three seasons, adding home games this past season when Mike Lange opted out due to the pandemic. Lange, who called Penguins games on radio for 46 seasons, is giving up his play-by-play role after 50 years total of calling hockey. He will continue to be a part of Penguins broadcasts throughout the coming season. Ray Borque continues as analyst.

 

The ESPN Monday Night Football crew with Steve Levy and Brian Griese will get to do some local pre-season telecasts this year as a warmup. The pair will call the locally available Denver Broncos telecasts. These will be in addition to the pair of exhibition game telecasts which will air on ESPN.

 

Mike Golic will serve as an analyst for Westwood One NFL regular season broadcasts this season. This will be in addition to Mike's weekly football show which will be distributed by Westwood One.

 

How exciting can this week's NBA Summer League telecasts sound? With Gus Johnson scheduled to do play-by-play on Friday (8/13) on NBA-TV, we are likely to find out.

A Performance of Olympic Proportion

Just as NBC did with the NHL contract over the past few years, NBC did a tremendous job with its just coverage of the just concluded Olympics. Using its family of networks while making specific sports and events relatively easy to find added to the quality production value. Mike Torico was superb as primary "studio" host, making it clear to all that he had done his homework and was on top of everything going on around him.

This makes it even harder to swallow that NBC lost the NHL contract and lacks content to continue with NBCSN starting very soon.

However, while NBC Sports deserves applause on that count, it is quite the opposite for college football fans, especially of Notre Dame and Toledo University. NBC wants to promote Peacock, especially it's premium version which costs $4.99 per month. They are trying to slip it under the radar that the Notre Dame home opener on September 11th against Toledo will ONLY be available to paying customers on Peacock. It will be treated as a regular NBC telecast, with Mike Torico calling the game. This game also marks the debut of Drew Brees as analyst.

Yet, fans of both schools (including Toledo University, which, because of this, gets robbed of the national spotlight) are expected to pay to watch this game, while the remaining telecasts will be as usual on NBC.

It's not up to me, but if they must make a money grab, put the "regular" telecast on NBC as usual. Offer up a $4.99 expanded telecast only on Peacock with no commercials, expanded pre and post-game coverage, and perhaps a player or coach on each time mic'd up. Do things that would make the avid fan willing to spend the money, but not rob the casual college football fans of a telecast.


With no teams calling, Robert Griffin III appears to be headed to an analyst role for the coming football season. Looks like ESPN noticed his quality work for Bleacher Report during their 2021 NFL Draft coverage. As of press time, he was reportedly completing a deal to join ESPN to work on both college games and its NFL coverage.

Over at CBS, the network has reportedly increased the role for analyst Jay Feely for the coming season. As the network prepares to unveil its NFL announcing teams, all signs point to Feely being teamed with Spero Dedes on regional telecasts. This comes after word that Adam Archuleta will now be paired with Greg Gumbel.

Local preseason telecasts will, once again, feature network play-by-play voices where possible. Ian Eagle will call the lone local Jets telecast (with Peter Schrager as analyst), Adam Amin will call Chicago Bears games (with Jim Miller as analyst), while Buffalo will have both Andrew Catalon and Steve Tasker on its exhibition games. Justin Kutcher will call Atlanta Falcons games. The champion Tampa Bucs fans will have Chris Myers and Ronde Barber on their telecasts.

NFL exhibition games will be upon us later this week.

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