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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The Big Game Lacks The Typical Big Audience

If they executives of the major pro sports are not concerned about their ability to generate billions of dollars of income without opening the gates, they should be now. It has been one thing to have had regular season and early post-season ratings down across each of the sports since last March. But now that the Super Bowl ratings dropped, the ramifications could be coming over the next couple of years.

The Tampa Bay win over Kansas City finished as the lowest rated Super Bowl telecast since 2007, becoming only the 2nd telecast since then to generate under 100 million viewers. The audience was down roughly six million from last year's game.

Going in to this game, all signs pointed to record high audiences, even without the added drama of Brady vs. Mahomes for the championship. The pandemic caused far more people than usual to be at home or in limited gatherings to watch the game. The ratings of past years do not reflect the number of people viewing from large gatherings such as restaurants and bars. With millions fewer patronizing such establishments, there should have been an increase.

In addition, there was one more important factor. This year, betting on and around the "big game" was legal in many states along with online betting services able to advertise prominently within sports related programming. Point spreads and prop bets were more commonly discussed via the various media outlets.

Estimates in past years were that billions of dollars changed hands, whether legal or otherwise, because of the game. This includes the ability to bet on topics such as the length of the national anthem, last player to score, the coin toss, and so on.

These lower audience numbers happened despite including a record number of streaming minutes of the CBS telecast. Reports show that this was the first sports event ever to generate more than one billion streaming minutes, finishing with a "per minute" average of more than 5.5 million "streamers".

Despite these factors which were expected to add significantly to the audience, viewership was down. It means that during the pandemic, all four major sports have now experienced declines in championship series ratings. The leagues and teams cannot point to fans being in the stands or large gatherings to view.

All of this will make it tough for the TV networks to bid the billions of dollars they typically do or did. They are already faced with economic cutbacks and reduced advertising budgets from many large companies.

For that very reason, this could be a significant development in the sports world. The first major test figures to be the NHL, which needs to put a new deal in place before the 2021-22 season. NBC's deal runs out after the current season, while NBCSN will be going away sometime after the current NHL season and playoffs end. Indications are that NBC will not be aggressive with renewal efforts. It will be interesting to see if or how much Fox Sports and ESPN compete for future NHL rights given the current viewership climate.



LOS ANGELES: It's rare to have the son retire before the dad, but Jorge Jarrin is doing just that. Jorge decided to retire from the Dodgers Spanish radio broadcast team following the team's World Series win. Although he was on the broadcast crew for only 6 seasons, he leaves behind a 35 year on-air career in L.A., including his long tenure as a traffic reporter for KABC 790. Jamie Jarrin, Jorge's father, continues as the primary Spanish play-by-play voice.

CHICAGO: WSCR 670 The Score has added long time host and producer Matt Spiegel back to its weekday lineup. Spiegel has been with the station for most of the past 28 years. He joins afternoon host Danny Parkins as co-host on the 2 to 6 PM shift after doing fill-in and weekends since 2018 when he was pulled from co-hosting middays.

 

MADISON: Bill Michaels, who left WSSP 1250 The Fan in Milwaukee last month, has jointed WOZN 96.7 and 1670 The Zone (Madison) for the 10 AM to 2 PM shift starting this week. His show is also airing on WAYY-AM Eau Claire and WKTY LaCrosse, with plans to add other regional markets.

NBC Says NB See Ya To National Network

Some expected it and others were surprised, but the upcoming end of NBCSN will have an immediate impact on the sports media landscape. Despite some ratings success over the past couple of years, it appears that the pandemic caused the NBC brass to consolidate even more than they already have.

Staff cuts on its regional sports networks hit last summer, with another round since the first of the year. With NBCSN able to move any remaining sports programming to USA Network, they can reduce production staff and operation costs while not having to fill air time with wasted programming.

Back in the 80's, USA Network was a major sports presence on cable, more so than ESPN at the time. USA Network had Thursday Night Baseball with MLB doubleheaders, as well as NHL regular season and playoff telecasts. (This was where NHL fans first heard Doc Emrick calling games at the national level.)

This season is the final one of the NBC contract with the NHL. While NBC has done a superb job with its coverage, including showing every playoff game on one of its networks, the NHL remains the only one of the four major sports which has only one network controlling its telecasts. While it is possible that NBC retains its national game presence, it is also possible that Fox Sports would be a player, needing more content for FS1 and FS2.

Word is that NBCSN will go away during 2021. It is understandable that they do not have a date yet. Due to the pandemic, we are not sure if and when there will be Olympic Games in 2021. Nor are we certain that the NHL Playoffs would end in July as currently planned.

Events such as NASCAR and Premier League soccer would be assigned to USA Network. Speculation has its Peacock service also carrying some of the events via that platform. Peacock already carries roughly 175 matches currently.

It is not known, as of press time, how much (or how little) the impact of the pandemic was behind this decision. As we commented on last week, even with millions of people spending more time at home, viewership of the major sports is down from a year ago and beyond. This makes us wonder if we will see more cutbacks on all sports networks as a means of sending a message to the pro leagues that rights fees may start to decline during upcoming negotiations.


Over at ESPN, it's looking like the Monday Night Football broadcast crew might be staying in place for more than the one season. Word is that Steve Levy, Brian Griese, and Louis Riddick have passed the audition and will be brought back for at least the 2021 season. Word is that ESPN is looking to add the just retired Philip Rivers to its roster of analysts. Hard to imagine Rivers being added and not made a part of the network's weekly telecast.


While CBS prepares for the Super Bowl telecast, there is more emphasis this time around on making its streaming of the game more readily available. Finally, it will be available without additional cost. Viewers will be able to stream the game on CBSSports.com, Yahoo Sports, along with Verizon Media for its customers. ESPN Deportes will air the Spanish version.


Meanwhile, VIZIO has now joined Samsung in having a variety of sports apps available to their Smart TV owners. VIZIO now has free channels available including NFL Channel (different from NFL Network), CBS Sports App, and the Pac 12 Insider. Samsung allows Smart TV owners to access paid apps such as MLB for its owners.

To Be Frank, It's A Big Loss For Detroit Sports Radio

It's looking more like watching football on TV during the pandemic is not the golden goose for ratings and advertising revenue the major networks were expecting. This past weekend, the impact (actually the lack thereof) was felt on both the NFL and college football scene.

The NFL Wild Card Weekend (Jan. 9 & 10) featured six telecasts for the first time ever. Although the Chicago vs. New Orleans game on 1/10 was the most watched NFL game since last year's Super Bowl, the ratings were actually down roughly 15% over the same playoff  window last year. It did become CBS' most watched Wild Card game since San Diego vs. Cincinnati in 2014.

The ESPN/ABC telecast of the Baltimore vs. Tennessee game was down from last year in both ratings and viewership, although the ABC simulcast was up from last year's. Over at NBC, the Sunday night Cleveland vs. Pittsburgh telecast did well, but its Saturday prime time game with Tampa Bay vs. Washington was down more than 30% in both ratings and viewership from the same window last year.

The Fox telecast of L.A. vs. Seattle on Saturday wound up as its lowest rated Wild Card telecast since 1998.

However, the lower viewership is not a result of expanded playoffs and having consecutive days with triple headers. The NFL's combined regular season ratings were down roughly 7% from the previous season and about 2% from the 2018 regular season. While Fox led the overall ratings, they showed an overall decrease of more than 5% from 2019. The CBS telecasts were down roughly 4% from 2019, with its lowest average since 2017. NBC's Sunday Night Football had its "least watched" season since 2008, dropping around 18% overall. One positive for NBC is that SNF did finished as the night's highest rated prime time program, which could be due to the increased amount of reruns and one-time specials due to the pandemic.

It wasn't just the NFL suffering from lower viewership. The Alabama vs. Ohio State college championship game on Monday (1/11) is now the lowest rated and least watched of the national title games. The decline was roughly 28% in ratings compared with last year. In this case, there are other likely contributing factors. The game itself was a blowout, and came on the heels of the six NFL playoff telecasts over the previous two days. This point is bolstered by the fact that both the Alabama and Ohio State New Year's Day bowl game wins to reach the championship each had higher ratings than their championship match.

These viewership and ratings declines are not only happening with football. During the pandemic, the recent World Series ratings were  down roughly 30% from 2019, the NBA Finals down about 49%, and the Stanley Cup Finals were down by more than 60%. Both the NBA and NHL Finals were held more than three months later than traditionally scheduled.


Meanwhile, as the NHL season gets underway, NBC made it official that analyst Mike Milbury is gone after 14 seasons in his role with the network. This could be due to politically incorrect comments made during a telecast from the bubble. Jeremy Roenick is also gone from his NBC analyst role as a result of comments made on a podcast.

Although John Forslund called play-by-play of NBCSN's featured opening night game between Chicago and Tampa Bay with Eddie Olczyk, the network has yet to proclaim a #1 announcer to fully replace the partially retired Doc Emrick. Brendan Burke and Kenny Albert will share in the spotlight for the time being.


DETROIT: It's hard to imagine Detroit sports without Frank Beckmann, but after 48 years with WJR 760 fans are going to have to start getting used to it. Beckmann remains the only person to have broadcast games for the Tigers, Red Wings, Lions, and Pistons. In addition, he also called U. of Michigan football for 33 seasons upon succeeding Bob Ufer for the 1981 season.

Beckmann's last show is currently scheduled for March 26th. He has hosted the 9 AM to Noon spot on WJR for the past 18 years. Best wishes to Frank!


CHICAGO: White Sox TV play-by-play voice Jason Benetti has been named Illinois Sportscaster of the Year. Over on the radio side, with the broadcasts moving back to WMVP ESPN 1000 for the coming season, Connor McKnight has been named as the studio host. He will also fill in on play-by-play, which will be a first for him, for approximately 25 games. Those will be the games that new radio voice Len Kasper will shift to the TV booth and fill in for Benetti, who continues assignments for ESPN.

Trying Out The Extra NFL Playoff Games

The #7 seeds in the NFL Playoffs will really be playing for more than their own post-season survival this coming weekend (1/9 and 1/10). Considered to be a temporary addition of one more playoff team from each Conference because of the pandemic (even though teams all played the usual 16 games), this will be the first time we get six playoff games in one weekend. It has been four games over recent years.

If the ratings are strong enough, chances are expanded playoffs will become a regular occurrence. Yet, it's not as certain as we would all think. The Week 17 ratings, with playoff seedings still to be decided and so many people staying home, were not what the networks would have hoped.

The fact that most markets had both early and late games from both Fox and CBS may have saturated things. Yet, only one of the four time slots (two on each network) showed a ratings increase on Dec. 27th. This was the Fox telecast of the Bears vs. the Packers, with both teams needing a win. This telecast went to roughly 75% of the markets. NFL ratings have not been as strong as anticipated throughout the regular season.

Theories on why include the overlap of pro sports well into the NFL season and some fans not wanting to watch during the pandemic. What happens with ratings for the post-season, and, of course, the Super Bowl will be quite interesting.

Westwood One will be broadcasting all six NFL playoff games this weekend nationally to participating stations. Kevin Harlan will call the prime time games on both Saturday and Sunday for Westwood One, making him the only broadcaster to call more than one of those games. That includes analysts. Ron Jaworski joins Harlan on Saturday for the Tampa Bay vs. Washington game, while Tony Boselli will work with him on the Cleveland at Pittsburgh game on Sunday. Both prime time games will be on NBC, with Mike Torico calling the Saturday game and Al Michaels the Sunday one.

Sports talk radio lost one of its pioneers earlier this week with the passing of Tom Bigby at the age of 76. Bigby is most known for having developed WIP-FM Philadelphia into the sports talk giant it still is during his 15 years there. He also worked with leading sports stations such as WXYT 97.1 The Ticket in Detroit and KRLD 105.3 The Fan in Dallas. Whether in one of those markets to listen one of "his" stations or not, listeners of sports talk radio across the country will always have Bigby to thank for it.

The sports media also lost another major contributor last week . Those who go back to the days of Baseball Digest, Hockey Digest, and books about sports will likely remember George Vass. George passed away in the Chicago area at the age of 93. Vass was more well known in Chicago, having reported for the Chicago Daily News and Sun-Times from 1958 to 1994. He was a baseball beat writer (White Sox and Cubs) in the 60's and 70's.

CHICAGO: On a much happier note in Chicago, Leila Rahimi becomes the first woman to co-host a weekday show on WSCR The Score 670. She was named to co-host the 9 AM to Noon spot along with Dan Bernstein full-time after being well received in her weekly stint during that time started this past September. She had been with NBC Sports Chicago, being a victim of their cost-cutting layoffs last summer.

WISCONSIN: Milwaukee's WRNW 97.3 The Game is now being simulcast from 6 AM to 6 PM on Rhinelander 101.3 The Game. The station is airing Fox Sports Radio during the evenings and overnights.

PROVIDENCE: WPRO-AM and WEAN-FM have cut back on their sports programming, reducing from three hours on weeknights to only one hour. As a result, Andy Gresh does his final show for the stations on Jan. 8th. Kevin McNamara, sports reporter for the Providence Journal, will host the one hour of sports talk from 6 to 7 PM starting on Monday.