Good Karma Brands has announced it is expanding its presence in major market. The company informed its staff today and the press later in the afternoon to confirm they’ve assumed control of ESPN Radio’s stations in New York and Los Angeles. Andrew Marchand of the New York Post had reported the deal had gone through. FCC approval is expected in February.
The particulars of the deal call for Good Karma Brands to acquire ESPN 1050 (WEPN-AM) in New York, ESPN 710 (KSPN-AM) in Los Angeles, and ESPN 1000 (WMVP-AM) in Chicago from ESPN, and operate 98.7 ESPN (WEPN-FM) in New York under a Local Marketing Agreement. The three key sports stations will remain ESPN Radio affiliates as part of the agreement and continue airing a mixture of local programming and ESPN Network Radio content. It should be noted that Good Karma Brands has been operating ESPN 1000 in Chicago under a Local Marketing Agreement since October 2019.
“We are thrilled to add ESPN New York and ESPN Los Angeles to GKB,” said Good
Karma Brands Founder and CEO, Craig Karmazin. “These stations and teammates give
us an expanded footprint and increased resources to help meet our mission of serving
our teammates, fans and advertising partners at a best-in-class level.”
In addition to taking over operations of four respected brands, Good Karma and ESPN have agreed to extend their ESPN Digital sales agreement, which began in 2015. That deal calls for GKB to represent display and video inventory on ESPN.com and the ESPN App to local and regional advertisers in 14 select markets.
Scott McCarthy, Vice President, ESPN Audio, said: “At ESPN, we are focused on
evolving to meet the ever-changing needs of our business, providing the outstanding
content that our fans expect, and growing our audience in critical, leading markets. We
have a strong, 20+ year relationship with Good Karma Brands and know they will further
contribute to the success of these great local audio operations.”
Good Karma is no stranger to operating sports radio stations. The company also owns and operates ESPN Radio affiliates in Cleveland, Madison, Milwaukee and West Palm Beach. With GKB assuming control of ESPN’s local brands in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, the lone owned and operated station still under ESPN’s control is 103.3 FM in Dallas. That station currently airs ESPN Radio network programming throughout the broadcast day. Whether GKB or another company is interested in operating that signal is unknown at this time.
