Seattle Sports 710 listeners were treated to a familiar sound when they tuned in after Labor Day as Mike Salk and Brock Huard were reunited on daily radio. Brock and Salk is back in mornings for the first time since 2019.
It’s the third installment of the show for the twosome, who had a run from 2009-13. Once Salk returned in 2014 from a stint at WEEI in Boston, he and Huard were together again until 2019. At that point, the show ended so Huard could focus on his national college football broadcasting responsibilities and so Salk could transition into a management-only role at the Bonneville-owned station.
“Obviously this is very exciting. I don’t know if there’s anything more ridiculous than doing a third installment of the same radio show,” Salk joked to BSM recently. “I don’t know whether anybody else has ever done that before…When Brock and I left the show the second time, I don’t know that we were convinced that it was definitely going to be over at that point, forever. Brock was getting more into what he was doing nationally, with his play-by-play stuff, and I was doing some different management stuff. We were both kind of focused on some of those other things, but we sort of always knew that there was the opportunity, potentially, one day to do it again.”
Though it’s been three years since they did a full daily show together, the tandem has stayed connected. Huard made daily appearances on Salk’s solo show, which he began hosting in 2021, and they hosted the weekly Brock and Salk Podcast, which Salk says was a big help in keeping their trademark chemistry up.
“I know what he’s going to say before he says it. He knows what I’m going to say before I say it. Generally, we know when the other ones about to wrap up. We just sort of have a sense of the rhythm of it. I think it’s the right word,” Salk said.
But as Salk and Huard reunite, the show will have some major differences from iterations past. For starters, Salk will host the 6-7 AM hour solo, with Huard joining from 7:00 AM-10:00 AM. Also, Huard will be off on Fridays during football season to focus on his college football duties.
This provides an interesting and intriguing dynamic for listeners. If you enjoyed Salk’s solo show for the last year, you will still get that show from 6:00 AM-7:00 AM, and on Fridays. And if you prefer Brock and Salk, you are still getting that for 12 hours a week. Sounds like a best of both world scenario.
“I’ll still have a little outlet for the individual stuff for the first hour from six to seven, and then Friday, as well,” Salk added. It is the Brock and Salk show, and it will always carry that name, but in the 6:00 AM hour, and on Fridays, it will be closer to what I’ve done for the last year.”
The hours of Huard isn’t the only difference from previous versions of the show. The show won’t have the consistent presence of NFL Insider John Clayton anymore, either. The Seattle legend historically joined them each day but Clayton tragically passed away in March, leaving a void in the fabric of the station. Clayton also hosted a Saturday show on Seattle Sports and had for years.
“John was sort of that one national figure that was connected here,” Salk said. “I think he meant something a little bit different here in Seattle, where he did local stuff in addition to what he did nationally. We had him on our show every day and it was something that I know everybody looked forward to, and we had some fun with John along the way. So that will be different. There will be a hole where John once was, that’s for sure.”
On the programming and content side of things, it will be interesting to listen to how the show handles the evolving sports scene in Seattle, because it’s a scene that is much different than the one that existed in 2019 when the show broke up the last time.
The Mariners are coming out of a painstaking rebuild and are seeking to end the longest playoff drought in professional sports, the Seahawks no longer have Russell Wilson at quarterback, and the NHL is now in Seattle, with the Kraken getting set to embark on their second season of play.
Salk wouldn’t go as far as to say that programming philosophies will change, but he did acknowledge that this Seattle sports scene is different – and fun – in its own way.
“It’s been awesome, honestly. As much as it’s a bummer to lose a franchise quarterback, the search for a franchise quarterback is great radio. And post-mortem on the whole thing is, I think, a very interesting conversation…,” Salk said. “But to have a winning baseball team is new, and to have a budding superstar like Julio Rodriguez to talk about, and to get excited about, and to watch Mariners fans kind of come back and almost be re-awoken and remember what it was that made this city lead Major League Baseball in attendance for all those years. It’s been really exciting.”
And as Brock and Salk navigate these new Seattle sports waters, and as the Mariners and Kraken conversations become more prevalent, Salk knows that his new/old partner will be up for the challenge, given his history of hard work and preparation.
“One of the things that makes Brock great is how hard he worked when he took over when we first started doing this to understand baseball, and he had not played it since he was in high school, I think it was. And I would tell you that today. I would take Brock’s opinion on the Mariners as highly as any other host in town.”
And while this version of the show will have to go through all the different evolutions stated above, Salk continues to evolve himself.
“I’ve had some moments that were super exciting and successful in my career. And I’ve had some moments that were very much the opposite, and that have been humbling. They have have been reminders that I’ve gotten it wrong…” he said. This business has a way of hopefully making you more even keeled over time because your successes get negated at times by failure and your failures hopefully get overcome by triumph. And I think that’s something that I have found in the last decade or so of doing this.”
Brady Farkas is a sports radio professional with 5+ years of experience as a Program Director, On-Air Personality, Assistant Program Director and Producer in Burlington, VT and Albany, NY. He’s well versed in content creation, developing ideas to generate ratings and revenue, working in a team environment, and improving and growing digital content thru the use of social media, audio/video, and station websites. His primary goal is to host a daily sports talk program for a company/station that is dedicated to serving sports fans. You can find him on Twitter @WDEVRadioBrady and reach him by email at bradyfarkas@gmail.com.
