Upon the completion of the last year’s baseball season, Mike Bacsik knew that he was in a somewhat precarious arrangement that would not lend itself to long-term sustainability. Providing analysis for Texas Rangers baseball games while also co-hosting the midday show on 105.3 The Fan meant packed weeks, but he was fortunate to be working in subsets of sports media towards which he exuded passion. Yet Bacsik recognized that it was a difficult balance and has appreciation for co-hosts Kevin Hageland and Cory Mageors for adapting to the dynamic situation, sometimes anchoring shows where he would be off the air for a week or departing episodes early.
After approximately 13 years with the radio station, Bacsik bid his farewell to 105.3 The Fan in February to focus on his second season as a live game analyst for Rangers baseball. Nearly doubling his game assignments to 108 regular-season contests, he is enjoying the challenge of the greater role. There are still occurrences, however, where Bacsik wakes up and presumes that he is headed to the radio station, and he admits that there is an adjustment to the lifestyle and regular travel. In the end though, he did not view the decision to leave as difficult and capitalized on a fortuitous window.
“I was like, ‘This is it, this is everything I could have dreamed of,’ and it was a dream job of mine that I never thought was possible, so I never had it on my radar through the years of working in radio,” Bacsik said. “I assumed I was going to work in radio until retirement until I was like, ‘Okay, we have enough money. Everything is good, I’m satisfied. Move on.’ So I never thought I was leaving radio.”
In reviewing the distinctive configuration, Bacsik could discern that longtime Audacy Dallas executive Gavin Spittle did not like what was taking place. Bacsik presumes that Spittle found it too challenging from the perspective of a programmer to combat the instability, but he also acknowledged his own skills in radio. Detecting his ego in this circumstance, he found the craft to be effortless and felt he had the ability to keep the audience listening.
“There was part of me that was like, ‘That might be good that I’m kind of leaving radio’ because I got so frustrated with the rinse-and-recycle repeat of the Dallas Cowboys,” Bacsik said. “Every offseason’s exactly the same, every season’s pretty much exactly the same, they all end exactly the same, and I was just getting tired of it.”
The Move to Full Time on Television and Leaving 105.3 The Fan
Bacsik is a former pitcher who spent eight years playing professional baseball, which included a stint with the Texas Rangers. As someone with passion and vast knowledge of the game, he divulged that he had a verbal agreement with 105.3 The Fan to appear on one segment per day to talk about the latest news, developments and storylines.
Bacsik’s baseball agent helped negotiate the deal and followed up after the new year to receive a written contract for review. Concurrent with this, however, Audacy was in the midst of emerging from Ch. 11 bankruptcy as a private company and would later revamp its executive leadership team and engage in corporate layoffs. By the time Media Row at Super Bowl LIX was taking place, Spittle informed Bacsik and his agent that the deal was off.
“I think that he negotiated in good faith, we had a deal done and then the new people at Audacy were just looking at budgets,” Bacsik outlined. “Even though I think The Fan makes money and does a good job, I think they looked at it and said, ‘Oh, we’re losing his salary. No, we’re not paying another dime to just have a guy come on daily to talk Texas Rangers or Major League Baseball,’ but that’s only my thought.”
Bacsik provides a background premised on pitching to the broadcasts and tries to remember the details associated with the traditional baseball more prominent to understand. Aligning conventional thought patterns with modern analytics and perceptions, he also conveys shrewd wit and idiosyncrasies that lend to portraying his character. Play-by-play announcer Dave Raymond, who has been the television voice of Rangers baseball for the last nine years, is someone who Bacsik affirms can extrapolate his personality, and they were able to bolster their rapport on the green.
“We weren’t having tons of conversations together, so getting out on the golf course and playing golf and him getting to know me so he knows how to set me up, he knows my personality,” Bacsik said. “Yeah, I can be super serious about baseball, I can break down every pitch and the sequence and all of those things and what the hitter’s trying to do, and yeah, I think a lot of guys can do that [who] have the job that I have, but I do think I have a personality that is kind of, I’ll say, left handed and unique, and Dave knows how to get that personality out of me.”
Choosing Where to Grow Following His MLB Career
Bacsik was on the mound in 2007 when San Francisco Giants outfielder Barry Bonds hit his 756th career home run, breaking the all-time record held by Hank Aaron. In addition to interest in speaking with Bonds, media members also wanted to hear from Bacsik about his opinions on the record and what it was like to cede the momentous hit. One month later, he asked the Washington Nationals public relations staff how to reach ESPN, and later contributed to postseason coverage on Baseball Tonight.
By the time he retired, he had a job offer from The Fan to be a weekday host and an opportunity at The Ticket to serve as a producer with Norm Hitzges, who he considers to be a hero. Viewing The Fan as a startup without a defined path, he chose to work with Hitzges, who helped shape his abilities in the medium. The stint abruptly concluded though when Bacsik made a racially insensitive remark amid a string of posts disseminated on social media.
“I’ll look at it as somewhat a blessing from God because I did not think I was going to be back in any type of media capacity,” Bacsik articulated. “So after the mistake – and I apologize to this day, I still think about it to this day; it was arguably the stupidest thing I’ve done in my life – I immediately went back to college.”
Enrolling to obtain his four-year degree in universal studies from the University of Texas at Arlington, Bacsik assumed he would try and secure a teaching certificate to coach high school sports. Shortly after the Dallas Mavericks won the NBA Championship in 2011 though, radio host Greg Williams reached out and implored him to meet with Bruce Gilbert, who, at the time, was a vice president for CBS Radio in Dallas. A few months later, Gilbert reached out and they met in October 2011 where Bacsik floated the idea of doing postgame shows for Texas Rangers postseason baseball for free.
“He called me up a day later and he said, ‘Mike, I like your idea. I have to pay you money though, I can’t have you do it for free,’ and so I believe he gave me $75 a postgame show, and luckily, the Rangers beat Tampa, they beat Detroit, and they played until Game 7 of the World Series and lose to the Cardinals, and so that gave me a lot of time,” Bacsik said.
Bacsik eventually joined the Gbag Nation program alongside Gavin Dawson, Chris Arnold and Jeff Cavanaugh, and the show began to make a dent in the ratings against its competition. Although he considers The Musers to be the best non-syndicated radio show in the United States, he believes The Ticket started taking notice and recognized that there was a show that could effectively compete. The Fan continued to build over the years embracing a style of radio that differentiated from other regions of the country, specifically pointing out the putative Northeast style of sports talk radio.
“If I was telling somebody that was coming here, I’d be like, ‘You got to listen to The Musers because they have this way of doing it that the audience in Dallas-Fort Worth, they won’t leave their program no matter what,’ and it doesn’t mean you need to copy them, but you need to listen the way that Dallas-Fort Worth radio is done because it is unique,” Bacsik said. “It is not like most of the other cities that have successful sports talk radio audiences.”
The show moved to afternoon drive eight years later and was followed by the departures of Ben Rogers, Jeff Wade and Kevin Turner from middays, resulting in Hageland and Mageors moving to the opening. In the first quarter of the next year, Bacsik was added to the K&C Masterpiece as a third host, a new radio domain while continuing to appear on episodes of the Rangers Live studio show on FOX Sports Southwest. While he has not been part of the show for nearly two months, he still listens to station programming and is thankful to have had supportive colleagues.
“It was challenging, but I think Kevin and Cory did a great job of handling it,” Bacsik said. “I’m friends with those guys, and look, you talk to somebody 20 hours a week, I don’t think I talk to my wife 20 hours a week, you’re going to have, at times, battles and get ticked off at each other, but I think they did a great job last year with me being kind of on and off the show and dealing with my personality.”
The Growth of Rangers Baseball Into the Future
Whereas the Rangers used to be broadcast by Main Street Sports Group, the franchise formed its own sports media and entertainment conglomerate over the offseason that oversees the production and circulation of live game broadcasts. The creation of this entity, which includes the Rangers Sports Network and REV Entertainment, enables the organization to reach its fans across platforms and expand accessibility to view the action. This all occurs amid a seemingly ambiguous future of regional sports networks as most MLB teams have introduced direct-to-consumer streaming options in recent years, but the league could potentially streamline its broadcasting strategy by 2028.
“To be part of, I think, history in the way that sports media is changing for teams on television, it’s pretty awesome that I’m on the team that I believe is doing something that other teams were too scared to do, and now we’re going to do it,” Bacsik said, “and I think within a year or two, teams are going to be looking at the Texas Rangers and saying, ‘We have to do it that way. Look at how successful it is.’”
With the first month of the regular season underway, Bacsik is working to progress in this role and hopes to be viewed as a long-term fit for the position. Being immersed in this new business enterprise, he is optimistic that it will bring in revenue and witnesses the hard work of his contemporaries in positioning itself to function as a viable and groundbreaking solution. Bacsik feels the repetition in the position is contributing to his progress, and he is firmly embedded in the blueprint while also being aware of future needs and ostensibly unforeseen possibilities.
“I wouldn’t say never with sports talk radio, but really my goals now are to work for the Rangers on television, and if it needs to be radio too if there’s ever fill in where Eric Nadel or [Matt] Hicks or whatever need a day off and somebody’s sick and they’re like, ‘Hey, can you go over there?,’” Bacsik explained. “So my goal is to be with the Texas Rangers as long as they want me.”
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Derek Futterman is an associate editor and sports media reporter for Barrett Media. Additionally, he has worked in a broad array of roles in multimedia production – including on live game broadcasts and audiovisual platforms – and in digital content development and management. He previously interned for Paramount within Showtime Networks, wrote for the Long Island Herald and served as lead sports producer at NY2C. To get in touch, email Derek@BarrettMedia.com or find him on X @derekfutterman.
