News of the Orioles’ purported suspension of TV broadcaster Kevin Brown swept across sports media on Monday and Tuesday. While he wasn’t justifying the organization’s decision, Seattle Sports 710 host Brock Huard tried to explain the tightrope team broadcasters have to walk.
On Brock & Salk on Tuesday, Huard said there are different standards when the team writes your checks.
“It is different when you work for the home team. And I get people that would tweet me, ‘You’re the biggest homer!’ cause it’s replayed on NFL Network,” he said. “My job is to highlight and focus on the Seahawks.”
“I think what’s so crazy in this case is he didn’t even criticize them,” co-host Mike Salk responded. “I think that’s the thing that’s most remarkable.”
Huard added that even though Brown didn’t say anything controversial, team leadership doesn’t want anything out there that could be perceived as criticism. They also have people who pay attention and report back to them when things get said on the air.
“Any of us that have been in the business doing that understand the way that it works,” he said. “These professional organizations, have people full-time that listen to everything. They listen to radio shows in markets, and certainly to broadcasts – the pre-game the post-game – what’s being said. They want to know everything about what is being said about them.”
Salk said he didn’t think the public was ignorant to the fact that teams are always listening.
“They know that teams have a role in what comes out of their own broadcasts,” he said. “But the idea of that is really bizarre.”
