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Ed Werder Moves on from ESPN

BSM Staff
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Ed Werder Moves on from ESPN

After more than a couple of decades of work at ESPN, Ed Werder took to social media to announce he is no longer with the company.

“For 26 years, I’ve had the privilege of reporting on the NFL and the Dallas Cowboys while holding an ESPN microphone,” he wrote. “But that time is coming to an end. I will immediately begin considering other opportunities to continue my work covering the NFL.

“My ESPN career was highlighted by being assigned to cover 20 consecutive Super Bowls and included having my contributions honored at the Pro Football Hall of Fame. I would be remiss if I didn’t express appreciation to my incredible colleagues and to the players, coaches and other NFL team members who trusted me with their unique insight when covering their games or breaking news. I’ve created some incredible lifelong memories. My gratitude to all who have been in the audience, and I remain thankful to have been provided the most coveted platform in broadcast journalism.”

Werder made it clear he is not retiring or looking to stop covering the NFL, saying, “While this marks the end of my partnership with ESPN, I expect to continue working because, as so many studio hosts have proclaimed—and I still devoutly believe—’Ed Werder has more.’”

Werder was laid off by the company back in 2017 but returned in 2019 to be the bureau reporter for the Dallas market. Werder also hosts The Doomsday Podcast with Matt Mosley with weekly Dallas Cowboys coverage.

ESPN released a statement about Werder’s departure. “Ed Werder has been a mainstay on ESPN’s NFL coverage for more than 25 seasons. He has elevated our programs, including Sunday NFL Countdown, and the multiple platforms he’s contributed to while reporting at signature games, Super Bowls, and nearly all league events. His journalistic instincts and relationships have benefitted fans throughout the years. We thank Ed for everything he contributed and wish him success in the future.”

Mike Felger: iHeartMedia Adding ‘The Rich Shertenlieb Show’ is a Good Sign

BSM Staff
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Mike Felger: iHeartMedia Adding ‘The Rich Shertenlieb Show’ is a Good Sign

Mike Felger had Kendra Middleton as his guest on the latest edition of The Off-Air Show on 98.5 The Sports Hub’s Facebook page. In between finding out about Middelton’s influencer career and the dirty pics she gets sent to her from men, the subject of The Rich Shertenlieb Show came up. Shertenlieb started this week on Boston classic rock station 100.7 WZLX after being off the air for over six months since he left The Sports Hub and show partner Fred Toucher.

About the new show, Felger said, “I’ve sampled it, I think it sounds good. It sounds like Rich. It sounds like what it would sound like when Fred was off, and Rich was in.”

Felger has talked before on the show about wanting the industry as a whole to be successful and that was what stood out to him about iHeartMedia adding Shertenlieb to mornings. “I’m glad that he got that gig…Anything that gets people to turn the radio on I am for,” he continued. “I just want the industry to be good, I want radio to be strong, the industry to be strong, I want people to listen to the radio. I want radio companies hiring radio hosts to do radio shows. I take that whole thing as being healthy.”

While Felger wants his company to win, he wants the other companies to have just enough success to continue doing what they are doing. “I hope Fred and Hardy beat him soundly in the morning in the ratings, but I want Rich to do well, do well enough,” he said. “I want ZLX and iHeart to do well and do well enough. I want them to have a good business and a strong revenue stream. I am rooting for that and Rich personally as well, who I know, and I wish personal success to him. I’m more interested in iHeart hiring a real radio host to do a real radio show in Boston and obviously paying him enough to it. That’s a good sign and I hope it does well enough that more radio stations keep doing that and whatever gets you to turn on the radio, I am for.”

Middleton said she had not yet heard the new show but said, “I think the rotating third chair is an interesting concept. I was shocked to see Ted [Johnson] go. The rotating third chair is going to be an interesting thing in the industry.”

The pair talked about rumors ZLX might flip to all sports eventually and try to get the Boston Red Sox play-by-play rights, which are not up again until after the 2028 season. Felger asked Middleton if all of that were to happen, “Is that a good or bad thing for The Sports Hub?”

“I think both,” she said. “Obviously it’s going to pull listeners away from The Sports Hub, but it’s doing that already in the mornings because the nature of another show being in town. But I think the competitiveness and forcing people here to be on their ‘A game’…I don’t think that’s ever a bad thing. Competition is never bad.”

Felger later added, “Sports radio is so lucrative that a third company has decided to come in and do it, that’s how I read that, that’s good…I want radio to be strong. Radio, not just The Sports Hub, radio as a medium, as a business. So, if iHeart flipping to sports means sports radio is strong, I am for it.”

Clay Travis: ‘Knowing That I Control My Own Fate is Incredibly Important to Me’

BNM Staff
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OutKick founder Clay Travis is mourning the loss of his stepfather-in-law and shared how imperative the man was in helping launch the digital media company that ultimately was purchased by FOX.

Travis detailed how, without the inspiration from his wife’s step-father, he likely never would have started his own company after being let go from various online writing jobs at places like Deadspin, CBS Sports, and AOL FanHouse.

“He told me ‘Hey, you should start your own sports media company.’ I was worried. And this is really the impetus behind why I started OutKick. I just wanted a place where I could say exactly what I thought and I didn’t have to worry that one morning I was gonna wake up, and find out that I had been fired,” said Travis.

He continued by noting that now knowing how strongly he values that quality is directly because of his now-departed father-in-law.

“Knowing that I control my own fate was incredibly important to me. And that was because of those conversations with Larry, why I started OutKick … If you’ve ever watched or read OutKick, I’m not sure — really — that OutKick would have ever existed without Larry.”

Mark Levin: CNN Host Wolf Blitzer ‘is an Embarrassment to True Journalism’

BNM Staff
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CNN host Wolf Blitzer continually pressed former national security advisor John Bolton about a flag hung outside Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s house during a Wednesday interview. Nationally syndicated radio host and Fox News weekend host Mark Levin was not impressed by the interaction.

Bolton continually told Blitzer he thought the entire controversy surrounding Alito was “outrageous and unacceptable,” arguing that January 6th protestors didn’t have the ability to “expropriate” any flag or symbolism to their cause.

During the interview, Bolton grew increasingly animated, which led Mark Levin to take to social media to share his displeasure with the CNN host.

“Wolf Blitzer is such a nothing who is under water in the tank for the Democrats,” he wrote. “He has no self-awareness that he is an embarrassment to true journalism. A pathetic buffoon.”

Blitzer has been a staple at CNN, where he has worked for more than 30 years. He has hosted The Situation Room on the cable news outlet for 18 years.

Keith Olbermann: Tucker Carlson Network Lying About Deal With Russian State TV

BNM Staff
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Keith Olbermann: Tucker Carlson Network Lying About Deal With Russian State TV

Earlier this week, Newsweek claimed Tucker Carlson had struck a deal to air his digital video series on Russia 24, a Russian state TV channel. His company denied the reports, but Keith Olbermann isn’t buying it.

Newsweek cited reports from Russia that claimed Carlson’s show would be airing on the news channel in the country as part of a new business agreement between the two parties. Tucker Carlson Network CEO Neil Patel, however, denied that report.

“The Tucker Carlson Network has not done any deals with state media in any country,” Patel wrote. “Whoever is currently pretending to be the old Newsweek brand would know that if they had checked with us before printing like news companies are supposed to do.”

During his Countdown with Keith Olbermann podcast, the former cable news host suggested that the claim by Newsweek that Tucker Carlson is creating a new program is incorrect. He argued that the digital media start-up wasn’t exactly telling the truth, either.

“(A Russian state newspaper) said that the show is part of a joint project with Carlson TV, in which he will ‘interview figures and politicians who have alternative views to the mainstream.’ In other words, liars. Well, turns out Newsweek is partially incorrect here,” said Olbermann.

“This is not going to be some new series, at least not yet. It’s just going to be the videos that he’s already posted to Twitter X only with subtitles. Which raises this question: why would they need subtitles? I mean, everything Tucker Carlson says was written originally in Russia, wasn’t it?”

Patel wasn’t the only person involved in the digital network to deny the Newsweek report, however. Tucker Carlson Network Head of Programming and Production Operations Dean Thompson also denied the story.

“The story of a Russian show is totally false,” he said. “Any use of our content by that channel is without legal permission.”

AI’s Transformation of Sports Betting Will Be Slow But Sure

Sponsored Post
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AI’s Transformation of Sports Betting Will Be Slow But Sure

There is no getting away from the influence of artificial intelligence at the moment. Indeed, it has been predicted to disrupt every major industry. Naturally, there is also a lot of talk about how AI is going to disrupt sports. As an example, look at what Intel is doing with the Paris Olympics this summer. It provides a taste of the future of fan interaction, athlete performance, and, of course, data.

Yet, it is also interesting to see the predictions for AI’s role in sports betting, particularly on the bettors’ side. There are a plethora of AI prediction tools available right now. Some of which are built on OpenAI’s GPT Store, essentially a storefront of microservices. If you consider ChatGPT to be a general chatbot, able to answer questions on any topic, then a GPT is a specific one, trained to be an expert in a certain field, so why not football picks or a means to find the best horse racing odds or optimum strategies for basketball betting?

AI can only go so far in sports predictions

While an AI predictor can be a handy tool, we would stop short of proclaiming that it is some kind of all-conquering weapon to beat the bookmakers. For a start, there seems to be a misunderstanding – or willful ignorance – of how sportsbooks work in setting odds. Marketers of these AI tools tend to portray bookmakers’ odds on an event as a code waiting to be unlocked by AI. Yet, it overlooks the role that AI is increasingly playing in the actuary of setting a market and the betting industry’s ability to react to market movements.

In the simplest terms, if everyone is betting on Horse A because AI deemed it would be the winner, then the odds are going to reflect that, with sportsbooks also ensuring that their margins are intact. However, there is also a lack of admission that AI will allow sportsbooks to front run the market. It’s not a zero-sum game, and sportsbooks don’t hold a limitless pot of money waiting to be plundered by bettors. The same contradiction is being made with AI trading bots, claiming that they can make everyone rich by trading stocks. In trading, as with sports betting, there must be winners and losers to support the market.

In all of this, it should also be noted that AI – or rather, the large language models (LLMs) that underpin the decision-making process – can be overestimated in terms of its prowess. LLMs can certainly analyze vast amounts of information, but they do not “think” in the way that humans do. In fact, the AI itself doesn’t understand what it is saying; it predicts a series of words based on their relevancy to each other. This is important in the sense of how it deals with data: Structured data – previous results, player’s stats, home versus road outcomes – is fine for analysis. Unstructured data – a player’s mental fragility, a team’s propensity to choke – is better when in the purview of humans.

The betting experience will be transformed

It should be more interesting to speculate on how AI will change the betting experience rather than the act of betting itself. One term we hear time and time again is “personalization.” This refers to using AI to curate your homepage feed, for example, on an online sportsbook. It makes sense, of course. If you don’t ever bet on baseball, it’s fairly pointless to be greeted by MLB lines when you log in. They can take it further, certainly, moving you toward the types of bets you like to make. Those may be parlays or props bets, and tailored special offers and odds boosts to your favorite sports.

Forbes points out that real-time data feeds could help inform bettors of available strategies for live betting. It’s important to understand the difference between this and chatbot sports predictors that are being marketed across the web currently.

These firms, such as Swish Analytics, are aimed at informing the user of possible options. Perhaps the best way we can frame it is that they make sports betting ‘recommendations’ rather than sports betting ‘tips.’. However, as we pointed out earlier, sportsbooks will continue to take steps to protect their margins.

Some feel that the pursuit of data takes the fun out of betting. The enjoyable part of sports betting has always been finding value in something that you believe is unseen, picked up by a gut feeling or some spark of intuition. Using an algorithm – and now AI – can remove that entertainment value. Of course, bettors will always pursue profit, but the entertainment factor also counts.

One of the problems with analyzing AI’s impact on any sector is that we’re still very early in the process. ChatGPT is less than two years old. Some have suggested that we are in a similar stage to the World Wide Web in the 1990s. Back then, we did not know how revolutionary it would be. Most of us failed to predict outcomes like mass social media, the iPhone revolution, and so on. As such, it is still speculative to speculate on AI’s impact on sports betting beyond the admission that it will disrupt a multi-billion dollar industry in the coming years.

Celtics-Pacers Game 1 of NBA Eastern Conference Finals Averages 6.43 Million Across ESPN, ESPN2

BSM Staff
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Celtics-Pacers Game 1 of NBA Eastern Conference Finals Averages 6.43 Million Across ESPN, ESPN2

The first game of the NBA Eastern Conference Finals between the Boston Celtics and Indiana Pacers on Tuesday night averaged 6.43 million viewers across the traditional broadcast on ESPN and alternate presentation on ESPN2, according to Nielsen Media Research. This marks the most-watched NBA Eastern Conference Finals Game 1 on any network since 2018 when the Celtics faced LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers.

The traditional broadcast on ESPN featuring the lead announcing team of Mike Breen, Doris Burke, JJ Redick and Lisa Salters averaged 6.28 million viewers, while NBA Unplugged with Kevin Hart averaged 151,000 viewers on ESPN2. Guests included in the alternate presentation, which is a collaboration between ESPN, Hartbeat and Omaha Productions, included Joel McHale, DeMarcus Cousins, Jaime Jaquez Jr. and Lou Williams.

The Game 1 broadcast was the most-watched program of the day on all of television and also finished first in key adult and male demographics. The broadcast was up 8% from the comparable game between the Miami Heat and Boston Celtics last year on TNT, which averaged 5.95 million according to Jon Lewis of Sports Media Watch. Moreover, the contest is up 6% from the 6.07 million average audience for the Game 1 matchup between the Pacers and Celtics in the 2022 season on ESPN.

The 6.43 million viewership average is the third-largest audience within the NBA Playoffs, both being surpassed by Game 7 broadcasts on Sunday. ESPN broadcast the New York Knicks matchup against the Indiana Pacers that averaged 6.45 million viewers, while TNT presented the Minnesota Timberwolves and Denver Nuggets game that averaged 8.41 million viewers.

With young, dynamic stars including Tyrese Haliburton, Pascal Siakam and Myles Turner, the Pacers have been a draw on national television this year. The team played in the inaugural NBA In-Season Tournament Final against the Los Angeles Lakers and averaged 4.58 million viewers on ABC and ESPN2, the second-most watched game of the regular season.

For the first two rounds of the NBA Playoffs, games averaged 4.03 million viewers on ESPN, ABC, TNT and truTV, a metric that is down 12% from last year. The Walt Disney Company (ESPN/ABC) has reportedly reached a framework for a new deal with the NBA that is in the process of being formalized, along with NBCUniversal and Amazon. Warner Bros. Discovery, the incumbent holding the “B” package and broadcasting NBA games within its associated divisions since the 1984-85 season, reportedly has the ability to match rights; however, there is ambiguity surrounding what would constitute meeting such criteria.

The Walt Disney Company and Warner Bros. Discovery, along with the FOX Corporation, are preparing to launch a joint streaming venture in the fall, Venu Sports, pending regulatory approval. Moreover, The Walt Disney Company and Warner Bros. Discovery will introduce a bundle for Disney+, Hulu and Max over the summer and recently reached a deal to allow TNT Sports to sublicense select College Football Playoff games from ESPN.

Meet The Bettors: Jeremy Stein, SportsGrid

Demetri Ravanos
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Meet The Bettors: Jeremy Stein, SportsGrid

Remember when America was debating whether or not daily fantasy sports was a form of gambling? There was never much of a question for Jeremy Stein. He knew it was gambling, because he was playing all the time.

It’s hard to say whether or not he knew that his employer, Metamorphic Ventures, investing in one of these companies would lead him down a new career path. All he knew is that there was something to this business.

Stein was more than just kind of successful in the daily fantasy world. He became the first person to ever win a million-dollar prize twice in the same calendar year back in 2016. But that was in the early days. Soon, the DFS sites would become more popular, and the games would get a lot harder. 

Like many sharp players during that time, Stein leaned into data to set his lineups. It was something that he and his partner Lou Maione quickly recognized as an opportunity. If you had strong data and took it to a host that was entertaining, it would create a product every sports fan in the country might value.

And that is how SportsGrid was born.

Today, Stein is the company’s CEO. In our conversation, presented by Point to Point Marketing, we touch on the opportunities embracing FAST TV has created for the brand, what opportunities will arise from the growth of women’s sports, and so much more.

Demetri Ravanos: What is the hole that would exist in the market if SportsGrid went away tomorrow? What segment of bettors do you look at and say, “no one can serve them like we do”?

Jeremy Stein: That’s a really interesting question because, we had a few tailwinds at SportsGrid. The first was sports gambling, where the government flipped the switch and said, “go grow in ways that you never thought were imaginable,” right?           

The second tailwind that we have is connected TV. SportsGrid is on 95% of all connected TVs. We have over thirty different distribution partners throughout the United States. So, we have very considerable scale within our category, and what we kind of discovered very early on on TV is the bulk of content on connected TVs is playback. If you look at FAST channels, there’s probably 2000 or more of them at this point, a lot of them are single IP channels, meaning there’s been a very successful sitcom and that IP owner just has a 24/7 channel of that IP going.          

The real niche that we got in on early on is that we are the only live sports network on a lot of these platforms. So, while we do cater to gambling enthusiasts, if you will, we really have a viewership body that encompasses all sports fans. That’s part of how we have evolved over time, because we were able to pick up on that observation that our opportunity is just a little bit bigger than focusing on, I’m not going to call it a narrow vertical, but sports betting in many respects is a little bit narrow. 

DR: It’s a niche vertical. I think all sports talk kind of is in that way. I was going to ask you about the appeal of FAST TV, but it seems like you laid it out perfectly there. So instead, let’s talk about the technology and future opportunities. I wonder if you look at what Roku has just done with Major League Baseball and think that opens up possibilities for SportsGrid that maybe you hadn’t considered before. 

JS: The simple answer to that is yes. When we first started SportsGrid, a lot of the opportunity that we’ve seen in the past year, are opportunities that we never would have dreamed about. We have looked at live rights. We have looked at tier one live rights in the past year.           

It just goes back to the trend. Last year was the first year where homes that do not subscribe to cable outnumbered those that do. You know, now we don’t just have a term called cord cutters. We also have a term that’s called cord-nevers. I think that it is just the natural evolution of where the leagues are going to go.           

I mean, we just saw Netflix do a deal with the NFL. While I understand that that is not FAST. I do think that over time and, this could be a decade in the future, but I do think that you will see, a lot more sports pop up on these platforms. 

DR: Yeah, I can see that myself. What did Scott Ferrall bring to SportsGrid when he came in? Certainly name recognition, but what else, in a business sense, did he add? 

JS: Scott is great and his show right now is sponsored by Bet MGM, and Bet MGM is a very important commercial partner for SportsGrid. Both sides are very happy with the way that relationship is blossoming. So he’s very important in that respect.           

You know, SportsGrid is not just 18 hours of live video content on a daily basis. We’re 21 hours of live original audio. We have channel 159 on Sirius XM. And of course, Scott is by far and away our biggest talent in the audio category. He does have the Sirius XM audience. You know, he came from Howard Stern way back in the day. So, he’s a pretty dynamic talent, if you will, for SportsGrid. We’ve been very happy to leverage him in various ways. 

DR: I sort of have a two-part question here, because doing what I do, when I go to SportsGrid.com, one of the first landing spots for me is industry news. How much do you think the average user of SportsGrid is interested in things like when states go legal, something like the pushback going on in Florida right now, and will that get to the Supreme Court from a media standpoint?           

I tell sports radio hosts all the time that people care far less about us than we think they do. What about in the gambling world? 

JS: News is a very big category, and obviously it’s broad, right? It’s not just general sports news. It is what is happening in the gambling industry. We are fortunate enough to have a lot of data on every show that we produce, and we have seen a lot of positive momentum uncovering specific industry news. So, a lot of what you actually see, on the web, for example, we believe that is largely a gap in the market based on our viewership.           

One thing you’re going to start to see on SportsGrid, more and more is we launched a college transfer portal show. There is no major media outlet on broadcast television that is doing a dedicated show, relating specifically to the college transfer portal. It makes college football and college basketball year-round sports. We believe that that’s a big gap in the market. So, you’ll also see a lot of that content flowing through our website too, and not just on our website, but also a lot of our syndication partners like MSN.           

Everything we do here has a data driven focus. So if you’re seeing a lot of a specific vertical, there’s a reason for it. It’s largely because that’s what our viewers demand. 

DR: Interesting. So, from the standpoint of what is going on in the gambling industry, the idea of the Supreme Court taking up a case related to Florida is interesting because it is such a complicated issue there, as it involves the Indian Gaming Act. Do you think we’re going to see that go in front of the Supreme Court? 

JS: Look, I’m certainly not in a position to comment on a legal matter that I’m not really close to, to be perfectly honest with you. But Florida is a very populous state, and that is another reason, to your point, why there is so much interest in it, right?           

I think it does speak to the fact that there is a real demand for sports wagering within the state of Florida. But look, the complexities and nuances behind all of the lobbying and a lot of the legal cases that are happening there are certainly beyond our scope. 

DR: I was reading an article in the Miami Herald earlier this week that was talking about the effect Lionel Messi has had in betting markets around the world, because even if MLS isn’t on a country’s soccer radar, he certainly is. Can you think of any other athlete that has had that sort of effect on bettors or on his league, where he can get bettors to pay attention to something they usually would not? 

JS: I think the examples of that are probably few and far between. You know, soccer is one of the true international sports, and with that comes a very large betting market. I think it is certainly kind of unique in that sense, right? You’re not going to see that with an NBA player moving into the Chinese basketball league. You might see the media attention that kind of happens there. It’s certainly not going to drive the amount of betting handle that we have seen in soccer. 

DR: What about betting as the popularity of women’s sports and female athletes have increased? What has been the demand for content from you guys, whether it’s Caitlin Clark’s WNBA debut, the women’s NCAA tournament, or whatever it might be? 

JS: There’s a ton of demand. We’ve always had an interest in women’s sports. We’ve produced, in the past, shows for the WNBA. And I think that that demand is only going to continue to grow. Women’s sports, from an economic standpoint, is a huge area of growth. Alongside of that comes all of the viewership. So, we’re very excited, about women’s sports. You’ll absolutely see a lot more coverage from SportsGrid going forward. 

DR: So I want to wrap with a follow up to that, because the way you guys think about creating content with providing that data to talented people that can command attention, as women’s sports grow in popularity, and it then becomes more and more of a part of what you do. Do you foresee the people you have now, because they have the talent, being able to intelligently cover it or would you  have to go out and hire people more versed in and live in that world? 

JS: It’s a little bit of both. You know, you always want to find a talent that resonates with the audience. We’re pretty confident that we have a few of those in our stable. But of course, we will always look to bring in fresh faces. Yeah, it’s a really dynamic market, and it’s something that we are incredibly excited about. 

To learn more about Point-To-Point Marketing’s Podcast and Broadcast Audience Development Marketing strategies, contact Tim Bronsil at tim@ptpmarketing.com or 513-702-5072.

An Easy Way for Sports Radio Stations to Get Publicity for Their Talent and Brands

Dave Greene
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An Easy Way for Sports Radio Stations to Get Publicity for Their Talent and Brands

Having been in this role with Barrett Sports Media for almost six months, there is one thing that has really surprised me. I am shocked at how little we hear from some sports radio stations. There are some PDs and other executives out there who do a great job keeping us informed of any changes and one or two who send us information when they have something special going on, but the silence from the heavy majority of leaders in sports radio is shocking and confusing to me.

When I was running stations or sales teams, I would often say, “If we aren’t going to tell our story, who the heck else is going to do it for us?”

Well, in this case, we will do it for you if you let us know about it and it’s worthy of coverage. It’s like that other famous line in Jerry Maguire – “Help me, help you.”

Perhaps we just need to let you know what we are looking for. So, let me take this time and space to let you know and maybe we can work together more often moving forward.

Obviously, we will cover your major personnel changes. If you are adding someone to your team or giving someone a promotion for the hard work they have done, let us know about it. There are no stories we would like to tell more than ones about people in our industry advancing. We want to highlight those people and the stations and companies that are taking notice of what someone is doing and rewarding them for it.

Where are the rising stars? We profile many people in the industry and enjoy doing that so others can read about successful people and learn what it is that makes them stand out. This can be a weekday host, someone standing out during off-peak times or producers, digital or promotions staff. Let us know who is performing at a high level and perhaps we can feature them and tell their story so others can see who they are and the work they’ve done.

On the business side, I’d like to feature your top salespeople or sales leaders in one of my ‘Seller to Seller’ features. Let me know someone who is killing it out on the streets and let’s highlight their success. Personally, I’d love to write about some sellers who are fairly new to the industry but are really having success, whether that be a younger person hired or someone who had never been in the space before but has really caught on. Or who is your veteran seller who has done the best job of adapting to the new, digital world?

What is your station doing that is unique? There are a couple of stations, which you can probably figure out if you are paying attention, that are very good about sending us a quick note when they are doing something different or special. We may not always write a story about it, but several times we have, and we would not have known about it had the station management not given us a heads up.

I like to hear about the creative process, and I know other station managers appreciate learning what others are doing to creatively drive audience or revenue. Have someone in your building who is the creative brain behind many of your ideas? Let us know about them, let’s let everyone know about them.

We are here to cover the industry. It would be great if we could listen to all of your stations each and every day, but that would be impossible. Plus, you know what is about to happen so getting the information out to us beforehand can help us plan our coverage. The truth is, we can do a much better job at our jobs with a little help from you. I know everyone is busy but think about what it would mean to a staff member for someone to reach out and say, ‘Your boss told us about the great work you’ve been doing,’ or ‘We heard about the great idea you came up with, we want to tell the story about what you created.’

I’d also like to do more stories that relate to things you have to deal with on a day-to-day basis, stories that can be written that others may look at and learn something from, maybe get a tip on how to handle a particular situation or just get your thoughts on a particular media story. I plan to reach out to more of you to get your thoughts on things happening in our industry. You are the leaders who are there to take this format into the future, I want to know what you think, and I believe that is what our readers want as well.

When you take a step back and think about what we get to do for a living, that we all get to be in and around sports coverage in our communities, that’s pretty cool. Let’s work together to help advance the format by keeping people up to date on the great things going on in sports radio.

I am not hard to reach. My email is dave@barrettmedia.com and while I know several of you, the majority I do not know, but I’d like to. Reach out, let me know what’s happening at your station, send over a topic you want to hear what others might think about or let’s just connect and next time I’m looking for someone to give their thoughts and opinions, perhaps I can reach out to you as a thought leader in the space.

The invitation is there to get your station, your people and your successes highlighted. I don’t think I can make it more clear or easier. I hope you take advantage of it.

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The Best Thing I Heard Recently

I was flipping through SiriusXM last week and caught Mike Florio talking on Pro Football Talk Live about the NFL schedule release and the topic was whether or not it is fair for certain teams to have so many stand-alone games.

Florio’s point was that these games have “an extra layer of stress and strain.” Despite the Chiefs winning the Super Bowl last year with a prime-time heavy schedule, Florio used the Jets early season schedule as the best example of the league making it very tough on a team with quick turnarounds, international travel and several stand-alone games.

The segment really made you think. You can listen to the show by clicking here. Look for Episode 1956.

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In Case You Missed It

Last week, Andy Masur weighed in on what might happen to Inside the NBA now that it appears TNT will lose the NBA media rights. Andy says he is convinced the show only works on TNT and others have agreed saying networks like NBC probably wouldn’t allow the show to have as much freedom as TNT has.

About the current show, Masur wrote, “This show is the envy of all other studio shows. Other networks have tried to copy the formula but have failed. It’s really hard to duplicate what this show brings to the viewer.”

You can read Andy’s article by clicking here.

One Mistake by a Sports Broadcaster Should Not Define Their Career

Andy Masur
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One Mistake by a Sports Broadcaster Should Not Define Their Career

We’ve seen numerous broadcasters lose, his/her job over the years because of slip ups, hot mics and misspeaks. Situations that could have been avoided but happened. Some of these cases are more prominent than others, due to the profile of the job lost and the nature of the words said by the sports broadcaster.

I bring this up because of the dubious anniversary that just passed. It was a year ago, that Glen Kuiper was fired by the Oakland A’s for the use of the “N-word” during the opening of a telecast. The A’s were in Kansas City and Kuiper spoke about his trip to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum with broadcast partner Dallas Braden during a pregame segment on NBC Sports California. Kuiper attempted to say, “We had a phenomenal day today, Negro League Museum and Arthur Bryant’s Barbeque,” but he mispronounced “negro,” in a way that sounded like a racial slur.

“A little bit earlier in the show, I said something that didn’t come out quite the way I wanted it to. I just wanted to apologize if it sounded different than I meant it to be said… I just wanted to apologize for that.” Kuiper said during the game.

After initially being suspended, Kuiper was let go May 22, 2023. This even after Negro League Museum President Bob Kendrick forgave him in a Tweet the night of the incident.

“I’m aware of the unfortunate slur made by Glen Kuiper. I welcomed Glen to the NLBM yesterday and know he was genuinely excited to be here,” Kendrick tweeted Saturday. “The word is painful and has no place in our society. And while I don’t pretend to know Glen’s heart, I do know that my heart is one of forgiveness. I hope all of you will find it in yourselves to do the same.”

Still teams don’t have a lot of choice but to suspend and/or fire the broadcaster in those cases. Slurs aren’t acceptable. Teams serve their entire fanbase, not just one specific race or gender. Offensive language about one is handled as offensive language about all. It’s a tough thing for teams to deal with for sure.

About 4 years ago, the Cincinnati Reds and their television flagship were put in a similar situation after an unfortunate on-air slip by broadcaster Thom Brennaman. The veteran announcer issued an on-air apology after he was caught uttering a gay slur on a mic he didn’t realize was on. Like with Kuiper, Brennaman was at first suspended and then fired. It also cost him his national job with Fox Sports.

Brennaman tried to grow from the experience and soon after he was pulled from the air, he heard from some folks in the LGBTQ+ community. From all over the country. Brennaman met with leaders of the community in Cincinnati. In one of those meetings, he encountered some who thought he was a fraud, just trying to get his job back. Brennaman was not. He has spent the last four years continuing to move forward.

He told me in 2022, “I don’t want the rest of my life or career to be defined by a lot of people as being a homophobe. That’s what I’ve tried to explain to my kids”. “There are going to be people and I’ve had a hard time coming to grips with this, because I know I am not a homophobe. I know I’m not. But I used a word that can put me in that category and some people are never going to let me out of that category. I wish they didn’t feel that way, and I know I’m not a homophobe, but you got to move on and keep doing the best you can, that’s all you can do.”

This is not a recent phenomenon either. Broadcasters in the 80’s, 90’s and into the 2000’s have also been let go for unsavory comments.

Many remember Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder, who appeared as the ‘gambling expert’ on the early days of The NFL Today on CBS. He was let go in 1988 after making a racially insensitive comment to a reporter.

Steve Lyons, then of MLB on Fox was fired for a making a racially insensitive comment during Game 3 of the 2006 ALCS.

Danyelle Sargent dropped an F-bomb on national television after ESPNEWS experienced technical difficulties during her segment in 2006.

Emily Austen was a Fox Sports Reporter that was fired in 2016 for making insensitive remarks about Mexican, Jewish and Chinese people. She appeared on a Barstool sports podcast where she made the comments.

The list goes on and on.

Interestingly enough, Charissa Thompson wasn’t fired for admitting that she made up stories as part of her halftime reporting duties. She also appeared on a Barstool podcast and flippantly remarked how she did this early in her career. I know she didn’t insult a racial, religious or gender related group, but she certainly upset many in the industry. Especially those that cover the sidelines for various networks right now. Should ethics count the same as the other slip ups?

Some can get carried away when appearing on shows other than their own, like the example above with Austen and Thompson. There’s a callousness that pops up in the brain, saying, “this isn’t a network show, I can swear and be myself”. Dangerous thoughts to say the least. You are still representing your organization/network and yourself when appearing on these other shows and podcasts.  

Look, it doesn’t mean that these broadcasters are horrible human beings. Everybody makes a slip up. Broadcasters though are looked at in a different manner. They are the voices of our favorite sports and are supposed to be like a member of the family, right? We spend a lot of time with them during the season and feel like we get to know them.  So, it becomes that much more shocking when that person says something inappropriate.

The initial shock and awe of the situation causes many to rush to a certain judgement. There’s no getting around what was said, everybody heard it. Should a ‘slip up’ be a career death sentence though? I think that each should be taken into consideration separately. It also depends, to me, on the apology and what that broadcaster does to go beyond words to understand why the comments were hurtful.

I’m not sure what the correct answer is to all of this.

There are some that feel, instead of firing the broadcaster, suspend them and make them work to regain the trust of the team and network. They feel like there is a missed opportunity to maybe use these situations as an educational platform.

Broadcasters need to watch themselves much more closely these days. The second you say something incorrect, ridiculous or hurtful, it’s on social media. There is no escape. You are presumed guilty in the court of public opinion before you can even blink an eye.

In these moments, context and apology is everything. One slip up, mistake, misspeak or whatever you want to call them, is one too many. But, at the same time, long illustrious careers should not be defined by one incident.

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