Mike Felger has seen the sports media scene change drastically during his more than three decades in the medium. But the staying power of sports radio during that time period has been a welcome one for the 98.5 The Sports Hub stalwart.
During an interview with The (Nantucket) Inquirer and Mirror, Felger was asked about how sports media has changed since he began his career. He noted that before WEEI burst onto the scene in the mid-1990s, the space was dominated by the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald sports sections.
“Then the cable channels, certainly NBC Sports Boston, started doing their programming, and the Internet changed everything,” Felger said. “But the one thing that I think that has stayed top of the board in terms of relevance is sports radio. Sports radio has hung in there where newspapers haven’t, so lucky for us, that’s still a thriving medium.”
Mike Felger added the budgets of for sports media entities just simply no longer allow for coverage that once dominated the industry.
“When I first started, there were big sports departments, tons of reporters, multiple guys covering games and teams, and going on the road covering every game. Now that’s been really reduced, there’s only a couple of guys who travel to any given Red Sox game.
“I feel the nature of the reporting has totally changed, too. When I started and I was a newspaper writer, most of the guys who covered the team were there to sort of challenge the team or provoke the team, be critical of the team. And I think now it’s totally changed. Now I feel guys that cover the team are mostly defensive of the teams that they cover and really help protect the team against outside criticism.”
