Live sports rights are good for business. Everyone knows that’s true in television. From NHL to NFL, if you work in radio, you have no doubt heard many times that it’s true in our business too.
People don’t want to miss the biggest sporting events, but they also have lives. It’s why Westwood One is locked in on things like the Super Bowl and the Final Four, and why ESPN Radio is married to the NBA Finals, the World Series, and the College Football Playoff. They know they are products that bring stations real value.
On the local level, the story can be a little bit different. Sure, plenty of teams have broadcasts they put real effort into, but others, not so much. The St. Louis Blues recently joined that latter class. The franchise is doing away with its dedicated radio broadcast and will instead simulcast a single call on FanDuel Sports Network for viewers and on 101 ESPN for listeners.
Who Cares About ‘Good’?
St. Louis is not alone. Hockey fans in Buffalo, Carolina, Dallas, and Los Angeles have to deal with it too. It sucks, because radio and TV play-by-play are very different things.
Have all of the decision-makers in this process lost sight of that?
Hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars can go into a radio broadcast crew each year. You need competent people everywhere, and that costs money. The best play-by-play talent can be derailed by a bad producer, and a great producer can only do so much to elevate mediocrity on the mic.
But what if the goal is not to elevate mediocrity? What if a sports team or an owner doesn’t care about quality? It’s not far-fetched. So many businesses are invested in delivering products that aren’t good, but simply good enough.
If journalism from iconic brands like Sports Illustrated can be reduced to AI-generated articles, and NBC can build its entire NBA product around “hey, remember this song everyone likes!”, why shouldn’t a team have one broadcast that airs on both TV and radio?
It’s Everyone Else’s Problem
A team owner that looks at each of their two distinct broadcasts as afterthoughts won’t think twice about cutting one. The owners aren’t the ones that feel the consequences of a decision like this after all.
Fan outrage and advertiser dissatisfaction aren’t ideal, but they are problems for broadcasters and radio stations. Do you know how many layers an angry fan has to go through before the team owner even hears what they have to say?
How can a single broadcaster serve two very different masters? Kevin Harlan, one of the best to ever do this, has made the point before that TV play-by-play and radio play-by-play are two very different jobs. Listeners need the broadcaster to do so much more than viewers do.
A radio broadcast can sound too busy on television. A television broadcast doesn’t provide a full picture of the action to radio listeners. The broadcaster charged with being the voice of a simulcast is going to have to pick one group to focus on and prepare himself to hear from the other group about how much he sucks.
Radio stations also bear the brunt of the decision. They are the ones that are going to be stuck airing an inferior product. Maybe their advertisers are just happy to be associated with the team, but if the team’s diehard fans hate the broadcast, there will be plenty of advertisers that reevaluate the decision to be associated with it.
What Should Radio Do?
So many radio stations, be they locally owned or part of major conglomerates, are terrified of spending money, but they might have to in this case. In fact, I would bet that a market manager or a programmer that thinks about the payout over the price tag would see that there may be a benefit to grabbing this proverbial bull by the horns.
Most teams own their play-by-play rights outright. The stations they are on pay for the privilege of airing the games. What makes more sense when a team eliminates a dedicated radio broadcast—being bullied into accepting an inferior product or being willing to take on some risk to protect your investment?
I don’t own any of the radio stations that carry play-by-play simulcasts of the Blues, Hurricanes, Kings, Sabres, or Stars. If I did, I could wave a magic wand and solve this problem. I’m also not behind closed doors at Audacy, Cumulus Media, Capitol Broadcasting, Hubbard Radio, or iHeartMedia (the companies that do own those stations). I don’t know how they have reacted to being told that what is on their airwaves now is going to be worse. What I do know is, through no fault of their or the broadcasters’ own, the product is SO MUCH worse.
Could those companies turn back the clock a bit and find a compromise between the old days of a radio station owning broadcasts entirely and the present, when they have to take whatever scraps the teams are willing to give them? Take on some risk and invest in a dedicated radio broadcast.
Find a way to make it a win/win for the radio station and the team. If a valuable piece of your on-air product is in jeopardy, the least you can do is not let it go down without a fight. Every flagship station and affiliate is a partner of the team. Show the team what kind of impact that play-by-play has on its partners. Show them what it means to the audience and invest in making it work.
We hear all the time about sports teams and owners that don’t care about their fans. Usually, these accusations hit their peak when something drastic happens, like the A’s announcing a move to a city that doesn’t seem to want them. But teams show that same contempt in smaller ways all the time.
There are plenty that fans can do nothing about. Their complaints are shouted into a void. But when it comes to team broadcasts, the team doesn’t create that product alone.
Radio does a good job of advocating for itself with bloviating studies about how many people are listening and how we were the first social media—real smelling-our-own-farts nonsense. What if stations and media companies took action beyond just issuing press releases and recording promos this time?
Maybe your gut is to say that everything I have written has no impact, because it isn’t my money and that radio is lucky this is only happening in the NHL and hasn’t spread to Major League Baseball. I get that, but if local play-by-play is important to your business, you owe it to all your employees, advertisers, and listeners to make every effort to put out a product that matters and represents your brand well.
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Demetri Ravanos is a former columnist and editor for Barrett Media. He is the creator of The Sports Podcast Festival, and a previous host of the Chewing Clock and Media Noise podcasts. He occasionally fills in on stations across the Carolinas in addition to hosting Panthers and College Football podcasts. His radio resume includes stops at WAVH and WZEW in Mobile, AL, WBPT in Birmingham, AL and WBBB, WPTK and WDNC in Raleigh, NC.
You can find him on Twitter @DemetriRavanos or reach him by email at DemetriTheGreek@gmail.com.
The Kings actually went back to separate TV & radio broadcasts this past season. While Nick Nickson, Jim Fox, and Daryl Evans did the games on television on FanDuel Sports Network West, Josh Schaefer was the new radio play-by-play announcer with various analysts (including Daryl Evans) for Good Karma Brands-owned KSPN-AM 710 ESPN Los Angeles with majority of the games moved exclusively to the station’s ESPN LA app.