Just months removed from a boat parade to celebrate the franchise’s second Super Bowl and Tom Brady’s discovery of tequila, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers again have reason to smile. The team announced a new deal with iHeartMedia of Tampa Bay, which keeps the team’s games on 98 Rock and shoulder programing, including shows featuring players and head coach Bruce Arians, on WDAE.
WDAE has a stranglehold on the market’s play-by-play rights. It’s a good time for that to be the case too, given all of the success on Florida’s Gulf Coast. In addition to the Buccaneers, the station also serves as the flagship station of the Stanley Cup champion Tampa Bay Lightning and the AL champion Tampa Bay Rays.
“Normally it’s a little more organized than this, but it was cool to just let the cat out the bag,” WDAE and WFLA program director John Mamola said of the new deal being announced on Twitter.
As football season draws closer, WDAE will again announce a slew of shoulder programming for the team’s games. The Buccaneers hold the Lombardi Trophy and that obviously comes along with plenty of expectations and primetime games in 2021. That could give WDAE more opportunities to be very creative with how it fills the time before kickoff each Sunday.
