It is never easy to replace a legend. On February 19, 2024, Jim Costa found himself trying to do just that when he took over hosting duties in morning drive at 97.1 The Ticket in Detroit on Costa & Jansen with Heather,. His predecessor, Mike Stone, retired from full-time duty at the station, although he will still be heard on the station doing fill-ins while also continuing with football programming in the fall.
The new iteration of the 97.1 The Ticket morning show includes Jansen along with former Michigan standout and NFL veteran Jon Jansen and Heather Park, who has worked for ESPN, WWJ-TV and was also the in-house host for Detroit Tigers games at Comerica Park.
To start the Thursday April 4 edition of the show Costa is incredibly upbeat, and Jansen and Park are right there with him. Part of the reason for the excitement is in noting the Detroit Tigers are now the only undefeated team in Major League Baseball. Done partially in jest as the Tigers have only played four games due to rainouts, but Jon Jansen yells out, “Everybody in Major League Baseball is looking up at Detroit right now.”
Costa replied, “It doesn’t mean a damn thing but it’s a fun note.”
“Sports is supposed to be fun, right?” Jansen said.
And with that they were off.
A conversation about the Tigers home opener taking place the next day, turned into a mention of the Tigers’ playoff chances and then quick chatter about the Red Wings and Costa immediately comes up with a poll question he wants the producer to put out on social media. “We will keep you updated throughout the show,” he said.
Interaction with the audience is a key component of the show. Most of that occurs when listeners are texting into the station about a particular topic and Costa does a nice job of weaving the listener thoughts into the conversation.
The next topic the group hits is the very rare occurrence of an NBA player coming off the bench to score 50 points. The Pistons’ Malachi Flynn did just that the night before even though he averages just 5.8 points per game.
“…This has to go down as one of the most obscure heat check games for an athlete…this is like the White Sox pitcher Philip Humber, who threw a perfect game only to never be heard from again,” Costa said.
Costa recognizes the chance to get the audience involved with the Flynn story and asks listeners if they can name other sports “one-hit wonders.”
Jansen mentions Buster Douglas. “He has a name people remember because he beat Tyson and then he was never heard from again.”
It is now about 15 minutes into the show, and they’ve already hit on the Tigers, the Red Wings and the Pistons. They have also hit on a good topic with athletes who shined briefly. The conversation goes quickly but it is very smooth between the hosts. There was not a lot of pause in the back and forth, while at the same time nobody was talking or yelling over the other.
A few times throughout each show, Heather Parks does news reports. While she is doing stories, which on this day ranged from local crime stories to the upcoming eclipse, the others chime in. It sounds a bit forced, but it did also create one of the most humorous parts of the hour.
In the eclipse conversation, Jansen makes a remark about a “face melting off,” in reference to Raiders of the Lost Ark. Park says she is unaware of what he is talking about and the group learns she has not seen any of the Indiana Jones movies.
After throwing some shade at Park, the show producer asks Costa, “Jim, have you seen the movie?” To which he replied, sheepishly, “No.”
Jansen about loses his mind and yells “No! Oh my!”
Costa then says, “I was just sitting here quietly; I didn’t want to be judged. I was letting Heather take the brunt of that.”
Jansen replied, “I don’t know what to do with that information. I don’t know if I continue to make fun of you or if it just makes me feel old.”
They wrap that part of the show up with Costa asking, “Is it a movie everyone should have seen?” Jansen says, “Yes, yes it is.”
As they come back for the next segment, they mix in NFL draft talk with the text lines blowing up because people are stunned neither Costa nor Park have seen the Indiana Jones movies.
Costa then brings up the Detroit Lions storylines for the upcoming draft and points out when you are picking at No. 29, it is hard to have an idea who will be left on the board, thus difficult to breakdown what the Lions may do. Instead, the hosts wisely took a look at what others in the division could do and where threats might exist. The hosts didn’t agree on this with Costa thinking it is the Bears and Jansen believing Green Bay and Minnesota are bigger threats to the Lions.
This segment you really get a good understanding of Jansen’s NFL knowledge and how good of a job he does of presenting it. Jansen, who was the Big 10 offensive lineman of the year in 1998, spent most of his pro career with the Washington Redskins and played his final year with the Detroit Lions.
When a texter refers to former Michigan quarterback J.J. McCarthy as a “Bum,” Jansen is quick to point out, “When you’re drafting a quarterback in the first round, they could all end up being bums.”
The movie conversation threatened to take over and the texts were continuing. As they started to go down a deep hole about the Indiana Jones series, a producer humorously said, “We will need this topic around July 9th,” as he tried not to get too deep into the talk about the movie franchise.
As tends to happen on this show, the break helped reset things and they brought it right back using Jon Jansen’s football expertise to talk about North Carolina State basketball standout DJ Burns Jr. and the possibility of whether or not he could ever transition to football.
Costa & Jansen with Heather is about 45 days old as a show. The new host is around 30 years younger than the previous and the co-host has gone from the younger host to the older host. It will take a bit for the show to get exactly where they want it to be. However, the chemistry they already have sets things up for a bright future and could lead to “Fortune and glory, kid. Fortune and glory.”
Dave Greene is the Chief Media Officer for Barrett Media. His background includes over 25 years in media and content creation. A former sports talk host and play-by-play broadcaster, Dave transitioned to station and sales management, co-founded and created a monthly sports publication and led an ownership group as the operating partner. He has managed stations and sales teams for Townsquare Media, Cumulus Media and Audacy. Upon leaving broadcast media he co-founded Podcast Heat, a sports and entertainment podcasting network specializing in pro wrestling nostalgia. To interact, find him on Twitter @mr_podcasting. You can also reach him by email at Dave@BarrettMedia.com.
