Change is never easy. Far too often, the headlines surrounding the sports radio industry revolve around constant change. Hires, fires, and retirements dominate the news cycle. Change continues to be the expectation instead of consistency. When Westwood One Sports announced its official weekday lineup on Thursday, change arrived once again.
For many in the industry, the end of the Infinity Sports Network or BetMGM Network was expected. For a broadcast entity like Audacy, carrying the cost of two separate networks seemed challenging in the current broadcast landscape. That’s why news of the two networks merging and coming under the guidance of Cumulus Media’s Westwood One brain trust wasn’t stunning. It was merely another change.
However, beginning on December 29, the lights turn on and the mics go hot. Is the new Westwood One Sports lineup built to compete with the likes of ESPN Radio and FOX Sports Radio? Or is it designed to compete in a changing marketplace for content creators?
Earlier this year, former Barrett Media sports columnist Demetri Ravanos wrote a piece asking whether national sports radio has a best morning show. The contenders at the time were Unsportsmanlike on ESPN Radio, 2 Pros and a Cup of Joe on FOX Sports Radio, and Maggie & Perloff on the Infinity Sports Network. Ravanos broke down the comparison into five categories to determine which of the three programs could be considered the best.
In the end, after discussing name recognition, network, sound, outlook, and flamethrower (my personal favorite), Ravanos determined there was no clear winner. In fact, the exercise left him believing anything local is better than what national sports radio syndication provides in the mornings.
How Westwood One Sports Compares
That brings me to today. Borrowing Ravanos’ concept of five categories, I’d like to apply three of them to comparing the new Westwood One Sports lineup with ESPN Radio and FOX Sports Radio, respectively.
When it comes to name recognition, Unsportsmanlike still doesn’t have the national recognition that Brady Quinn and LaVar Arrington possess. Chris Canty is certainly a household name in New York City, but the show as a whole hasn’t elevated to the same level of star power as FOX Sports Radio.
With the hiring of Drake C. Toll to host mornings as a solo act on Westwood One Sports, name recognition places the show firmly in third. There are plenty of fans of the Savannah Bananas, but among sports fans broadly, the name value isn’t there yet.
You could say the same for Nick Kostos, Chris Bleck, and Adam Abdalla when looking at the prime dayparts. This isn’t a knock on their potential or what could be. It’s simply a reflection of where their national name recognition stands today.
Sound is a difficult category to evaluate because we still don’t know what many of these shows will sound like on the new Westwood One Sports network. Toll has never hosted sports talk radio in a full-time capacity, so ranking him at this stage would be unfair.
The same applies to the network category. The only proven entity at a national level in syndicated sports talk radio is Jim Rome in afternoons. Rome is also the only holdover from the Infinity Sports Network remaining in the same time slot.
What’s Different
Where the new Westwood One Sports lineup stands out is in outlook, and not for the reasons you might expect. What’s drastically different is the amount of youth and digital fluency across the lineup. Each talent has crafted a niche audience online, often outside the traditional pathways that many personalities on the other two networks followed.
There is no former athlete on the Westwood One Sports lineup. There is no former ESPN talent on the new lineup outside of Jim Rome. These are talents who worked their way up through a mix of traditional and digital methods, building audiences by adapting to how the next generation consumes content.
Can you say that about Dan Patrick or Doug Gottlieb? Can you say that about Clinton Yates and Freddie Coleman? This isn’t a knock on what those talents have provided over many years, nor on the paths that brought them to where they are now.
Westwood One Sports should be viewed as an opportunity for new and young talent to grow. Many sports radio stations across the country stopped trying that years ago. In fact, this approach reflects what much of the industry has come to accept as the norm.
This is change, and it wasn’t easy.
Build Today To Compete Tomorrow
Westwood One Sports wasn’t created to compete today, but to help set the playing field for tomorrow. It needed talent that thinks differently, sounds unique, and offers a fresh approach to reaching new audiences. This is content-first, but not radio-only. The goal is to connect with people on multiple levels, through every viable platform, and to plant a flag in the content spaces they believe they can win.
It doesn’t have to mirror what worked in the past, but it does have to work for the future. That requires bold decisions and decision-makers willing to try something different. That’s why I remain interested in seeing whether Westwood One Sports can penetrate the sports content space that top syndication programs have yet to fully capture.
Westwood One Sports isn’t built to win arguments on social media or comparison charts today. It’s built to challenge an industry that has confused comfort with relevance and longevity with innovation.
In a business that keeps recycling the same voices while wondering why audiences age out, this lineup represents a calculated disruption.
It may fail. But standing still has already proven to be the safer way to lose. That’s a change the industry should welcome.
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John Mamola is Barrett Media’s sports editor and daily sports columnist. He brings over two decades of experience (Chicago, Tampa/St Petersburg) in the broadcast industry with expertise in brand management, sales, promotions, producing, imaging, hosting, talent coaching, talent development, web development, social media strategy and design, video production, creative writing, partnership building, communication/networking with a long track record of growth and success. He is a five-time recognized top 20 program director in a major market via Barrett Medi’s Top 20 series and has been honored internally multiple times as station/brand of the year (Tampa, FL) and employee of the month (Tampa, FL) by iHeartMedia. Connect with John by email at John@BarrettMedia.com.
I can only speak for myself but I *WILL NOT* listen to a network that’s entirely predicated on trying to convince me to gamble. I already recoil whenever sports media does it during game broadcasts; the BetMGM hosts and shows I’ve heard take that pump it up to eleven.
Bart Winkler just aired his last show tonight, which means I’m done with Infinity and won’t be bothering with Westwood One once it switches over.
I cannot agree with the thesis put forward here. The new lineup does nothing to replace some of the best names in the sports broadcasting business. Most of the top names fired by Westwood one were quite competent in digital media and did not use recycled material. Some of the programs offered, including grid iron game day, were excellent. Farewell to great names like Jodi McDonald, Zach Gelb, and David Shepherd.
It appears that Westwood one will attempt to run a sports betting network on the cheap. And it is notable that the new Westwood one bosses never bothered to ask listeners what they wanted in a revamped network.
My guess is that this network will crash and burn. I hope I am wrong. In any case I will be listening elsewhere.
I have a hard time calling a merger of two networks into one when you barely bring along talent from either network.
Long live Bart, Jody, Shep, Carlos with a K, Gelb, JR, and everyone who made Infinity great.
Gambling talk isn’t sports talk. I find it incredibly boring and I change stations.
you can’t praise this new WWOS while saying “In a business that keeps recycling the same voices while wondering why audiences age out, this lineup represents a calculated disruption.” when the “big name” and selling point is Jim Rome. while I respect what he built it hasn’t been fresh material in over a decade. Also it’s built with 2 of the top 3 BetMGM Network shows, although stripped down to be less than they currently are.
Gambling ruins radio… I turn off the stations when they have their gambling segments. I was a daily listener to CBS Sports Radio/ Infinity. I’ll be listening to these last days and then will be moving on… Gambling ruins sports
Listened to the Drake Toll show this morning for about 30 minutes. Too loud. music awful and I miss the Infinity talent already. No more listening in the middle of the night. Back to the all news station.
the truth is that the majority of Audacy and Cumulus stations have live and local sports talk they would play Westwood one sports over nights anyway. If anything Westwood one sports radio reminds me of NBC sports radio me personally I listen to live and local sports talk instead of national sports talk.
Yeah, ive had to change the station once the local sports talk ends in Houston each evening. This Westwood one just keeps replaying the same segments all night. Bart, Shep Producer Karlos were original and funny, and i dont like how this whole transformation happened, felt shady. Why not keep all the talent everyone was listening to already? And gambling does ruin sports.
You only mentioned The Dan Patrick show in passing. His show is the best in the 6-9am slot and has been for a long time.