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The Killer Bs Move to Afternoons on ESPN 97.5 in Houston

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The Killer Bs Move to Afternoons on ESPN 97.5 in Houston

ESPN 97.5 Houston is making a change to its on-air lineup, moving The Killer Bs with Joel Blank and Jeremy Branham to afternoons from 3 to 6 p.m. CST. In announcing the move, the show said the station would figure out what happens to its former midday time slot later. Afternoons was formerly occupied by The Wheelhouse, which recently ended after its hosts decided to move on from the outlet starting with Cody Stoots.

Stoots left the radio station to work with the digital outlet Houston Football, focusing his content on the Houston Texans. Three weeks later, co-host Brad Kellner left the station to launch Texas Sports Unfiltered. Shortly after that, the final co-host of the show, Jake Asman, was let go by the Gow Media-owned entity, and is now continuing to host his digital show while appearing on ESPN New York 98.7.

Blank joined Gow Media and ESPN 97.5 Houston after working as a multimedia talent and director of broadcasting for the Houston Rockets. He was partnered with Branham to launch The Killer Bs in August 2021.

“It’s almost like expecting a regular airline seat and getting a loveseat with pillows and recliners,” Blank said Monday on ESPN 97.5 Houston. “Now that you finally get to sit in the big-boy chairs that you were never supposed to experience, and we were supposed to sit this one out. It’s just nice to finally sit in a big chair and realize we are now finally in.”

Branham has been the voice of the University of Houston Cougars since 2006 and began working with Gow Media in various capacities earlier in his career. He formerly worked in the timeslot and has wanted to return to the daypart for many years.

“I’ve been chomping at the bit to get this timeslot and compete again,” Branham said. “I’m happy to be competing with you Blankers.”

Bret Baier: ‘We’re Not Going to Let the Audience Get Out of Control’ at Debate

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The first 2024 Republican Presidential debate is Wednesday, and Fox News anchor Bret Baier is keeping everything in mind as the preparation continues.

Baier made an appearance on Armstrong & Getty Monday and was asked about the crowd because former President Donald Trump won’t be in appearance.

The radio hosts agreed they both wished there was not a crowd at the event.

“We’re both anti-audience and what we think it’s a distraction, people yelling,” said Jack Armstrong. “How about just let the ideas stand up for themselves? But we’re probably a tiny minority I guess, because there’s always an audience.”

“The RNC is in charge of this operation. So they bring in people from around the country, all of their big donors, all their big rigs and they want to pack the stands and show them a good time, etc, etc. So it’s an opportunity for them,” said Baier.

“We’re not running that part of the show, but I can tell you this we’re not going to let the audience you know, get out of control. I give a little speech before we start, the more time that we have stopped for audience applause or interaction, the less time you’re going to hear from these candidates on the issues that you want to hear about sometimes. Sometimes you got to stop and remind them but we’ll keep it going.”

The debate will be held Wednesday in Milwaukee from 9:00-11:00 PM ET. Fox News will broadcast the event with Baier and Martha MacCallum will co-moderate the event.

Michael Fabiano Joins Bleav Network

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Michael Fabiano is the newest voice on Bleav Network, set to host a twice weekly fantasy football podcast on its platform. The award-winning Sports Illustrated writer is a trusted source of information for fantasy football players around the country. The Tuesday edition of the show will recap the action and focus on the waiver wire, while Friday episodes will preview the upcoming action. Additionally, Jennifer Piacenti will join the show once per week throughout the football season to discuss player props and other aspects of fantasy football.

“It is going to be a lot of fun, folks,” Fabiano said. “If you want to win your fantasy league, you’ve got to listen to this program.

Bleav recently reached a distribution deal to join the Cumulus Podcast Network, which will now be responsible for monetizing and distributing more than 300 shows produced by the company. Bron Heussenstamm founded the brand in 2018 and helped launch its programming, which is already distributed across various audio platforms in addition to free ad-supported television (FAST) channels. The venture has more than 500 programs, specifically focused on teams across professional sports, and creates over 1,000 hours of original audiovisual content per month.

“I am so excited to be joining the Bleav Podcast Network, and you’re going to be listening to The Bleav Fantasy Football Show,” Fabiano said. “…I am here to help you win a fantasy championship or take the blame if you end up losing or make a bad decision.”

Fabiano formerly appeared on NFL Network but his contract expired last summer. As part of his role with NFL Media, Fabiano also wrote columns for NFL.com and moved to Sports Illustrated upon the end of his tenure.

“We’re going to talk about anything and everything that’s fantasy football-related. We’re going to have great guests on the program. I’m going to get some of my wrestling pals on my show; some of my athlete pals on the show; some of my actor pals on the show so you can listen and hear that they’re having the same exact issues as you in their fantasy leagues.”

Wolf Blitzer to Receive Emmys’ Lifetime Achievement Honor

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Longtime CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer will be awarded a lifetime achievement award from The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences at the 44th annual News & Documentary Emmy Awards.

Blitzer recently celebrated his 18th year hosting The Situation Room on CNN, where he has worked for the past 33 years.

“I am truly honored to receive this esteemed award from the Academy,” said Blitzer. “When Ted Turner hired me, he told me, ‘Wolf, at CNN, the news comes first’ and that has been my guiding light these 33 years and continues to be my advice to young journalists today. I consider myself incredibly fortunate that I still get up every morning and look forward to going to work and reporting the news with some of the smartest people I know.

“This award is a testament to the hard work and dedication of so many talented journalists whom I have worked with, been mentored by, and learned from during my career.”

Wolf Blitzer has previously won several awards for his broadcast excellence.

The 2023 ceremony will be held on Wednesday, September 27th at the Palladium Times Square in New York.

The Atlantic Shares Audio of Vivek Ramaswamy Interview Answer After Telling Kaitlan Collins He Was Misquoted

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The Atlantic Shares Audio of Vivek Ramaswamy Interview Answer After Telling Kaitlan Collins He Was Misquoted

Prospective 2024 Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy alleged during an interview with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins that he was misquoted by The Atlantic while discussing “the truth” about 9/11. The publication is now pushing back.

Ramaswamy told Semafor that a quote published by The Atlantic wasn’t what he said, before telling Collins “I’m telling you the quote is wrong, actually” when asked about his statements about 9/11 and the January 6th Insurrection.

“I think it is legitimate to say, ‘How many police, how many federal agents were on the planes that hit the Twin Towers?’ Like, I think we want—maybe the answer is zero, probably is zero for all I know, right? I have no reason to think it was anything other than zero,” The Atlantic quoted Ramaswamy as saying. “But if we’re doing a comprehensive assessment of what happened on 9/11, we have a 9/11 commission, absolutely that should be an answer the public knows the answer to.”

During The Source on CNN Monday, Collins asked Ramaswamy what he meant by that statement.

“This is really it’s funny. I mean, The Atlantic is playing the same game as CNN. It’s funny,” Vivek Ramaswamy responded. “What I said is on January 6, I do believe that there were many federal agents in the field and we deserve to know who they are on 9/11.”

When asked by Collins if the quote was wrong, Ramaswamy concurred.

“I’m telling you the quote is wrong, actually,” the candidate replied. “I’ll actually just lift the curtain on how media works. Again, I asked that reporter to send the recording because it was on the record. He refused to do it.”

On Tuesday, The Atlantic’s John Hendrickson released the portion of the interview Ramaswamy was claiming he was misquoted in. The candidate did, in fact, say exactly what he was quoted as saying in the recording published to the website.

The controversy comes one day after a report that Newsmax asked Ramaswamy’s campaign to spend more on political advertising with the network before it would cover him more frequently. The cable channel has strongly denied those allegations.

Blue Wire Starting New Crowdfunded Financing Round

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Blue Wire Starting New Crowdfunded Financing Round

Blue Wire, a podcast company started by Kevin Jones in 2018, is opening a new community financing round that will enable private investors to have a stake of ownership in the country. Its goal is to raise at least $1 million at a $25 million valuation cap, according to Jones, who will be part of an announcement on Tuesday with Wefunder. The company has primarily received its funding from former athletes, including former NBA guard Baron Davis, along with venture capitalists and Wynn Resorts. Jones is optimistic that the company will exceed expectations entering this new round, leveraging its library of content featuring personalities such as Lolo Jones, Chris Long and Gilbert Arenas among others.

“Blue Wire is offering individual investors the opportunity to join our movement,” Jones said in a statement provided to Barrett Sports Media. “Independent podcasters are building thriving content businesses, and our infrastructure can support this explosive growth. In a market dominated by major conglomerates and publishers, Blue Wire is building a different type of business. We believe in ‘strength in numbers,’ and this crowdfunding campaign further highlights this core value.”

The independent media company is entrenched within an ecosystem featuring numerous other personalities and brands trying to do the same thing. Colin Cowherd, who started The Volume in February 2021, estimates the brand to be worth $100 million; and Bill Simmons has experienced massive success with The Ringer, which was acquired by Spotify in 2020 for $196 million.

Moreover, John Skipper and Dan Le Batard partnered together to launch Meadowlark Media, which is the home of the hit digital program, The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz. Pat McAfee also decided to start his own company and sports talk show, leveraging his personality to ultimately lead to a multiyear, multi-million dollar contract to bring his show to the ESPN airwaves.

“I’m a grassroots, independent type of entrepreneur,” Jones said in an interview with Front Office Sports. “We’ve gotten here by all this participation in our network. We want to add a participation channel for potential investors, [and] we think we might surprise ourselves.”

Blue Wire currently has partnerships with both the Action Network, RotoGrinders and Fubo Sports despite losing more than half of its revenue last year. The brand has about three million unique monthly listeners on 120 million annual downloads, offering more than 300 shows across its portfolio. The platform has helped Davis, along with lead NFL on FOX analyst Greg Olsen, gain invaluable experience in the media industry and further propel their careers. With this latest round of funding, Jones wants to make it clear that the company is a place for growth and has the potential to redefine its niche of the sports media ecosystem.

“Anyone can invest in this round,” Jones emphasized. “It can be as little as $100. Substack just did a round like this in the spring, [and] they were able to raise $7 million from 6,000 individual investors. So we’re breaking down the walls.”

Courtney Cox Not Surprised Taylor Swift Question to Bill Belichick Went Viral

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Courtney Cox Not Surprised Taylor Swift Question to Bill Belichick Went Viral

On Monday, media outlets of all kinds picked up Bill Belichick’s interview with WEEI. He will appear weekly on The Greg Hill Show during the season. The first appearance made headlines not for anything that the Patriots’ coach said about football, but instead for how he feels about Taylor Swift.

He admitted that after watching the superstar perform a 3 hour show in a rain storm, he was won over. He called her “impressive” and “pretty tough.”

Co-host Courtney Cox asked the coach if he had any favorite Taylor Swift songs.

“Look, I’m definitely on the, ‘you’ve got to calm down,'” Belichick said. “That’s pretty good. You’ve got to calm down. There’s a lot of times when that’s very appropriate.”

On Tuesday, Cox reflected on the way the clip spread around TV and the internet.

“I mean, is there anything better for this show? We get trashed constantly day-in, day-out, whether it’s the Twitchers, the text line, who we love dearly, saying ‘talk sports! Sports, sports, sports!’” She said. “Then we ask a Taylor Swift question and that’s what gets picked up .”

Hill pointed out that Belichick’s praise for Tom Brady and what him coming back to Foxboro will mean to the team and the NFL got picked up as well. There is no denying though that the headline was the coach’s feelings about Taylor Swift.

“It broke the interwebs yesterday,” he said.

David Pollack: Losing Time With Rece Davis is Worst Part of Leaving ESPN

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Getting laid off is never easy. You question what you did wrong, whether you are good enough to ever find a new gig and so much more. David Pollack said on his podcast this week that one emotion he wasn’t prepared for was the sadness that comes with realizing you won’t have the time to spend with the people you grow close to anymore.

On the latest edition of his Family Goals podcast, Pollack admitted that he had no idea he was on the chopping block before he got the call that he was among the many ESPN talents that were let go in July. That doesn’t mean he is bitter.

“I would not trade this, not turn it in. I got to go travel the country, see things, give my family experiences that we never would have gotten,” the former All-American Georgia Bulldog said. “So I was like ‘dude, you have nothing to apologize for. You have nothing to be sorry about.'”

He admitted that telling his kids what had happened was hard. It was also hard to say goodbye to College GameDay host Rece Davis. He said that is the first time he shed a tear over the decision.

“My first comment to him was, ‘I also know that this means,’ and what this means is we’re not going to get time together. And you know what happens when you don’t get time together, people drift apart,” Pollack said. “And his first comment was ‘that’s not going to happen. I guess I’ll be at your golf tournament every year.’ I think that made me feel better. But that was probably the only thing was really difficult.”

Pollack is not the only regular that won’t be back for College GameDay in 2023. Reporter Gene Wojciechowski is also out. On Monday, news broke that Lee Fitting, the executive producer that shepherded College GameDay to prominence, had been let go by ESPN as well.

Howie Carr: Fox News Was ‘Counting on’ Donald Trump to ‘Rescue Their Flailing Network’

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Howie Carr: Fox News Was ‘Counting on’ Donald Trump to ‘Rescue Their Flailing Network’

Late last week, former President Donald Trump revealed he would not participate in the first 2024 Republican Presidential debate airing on Fox News. Howie Carr found humor in the announcement.

During The Howie Carr Show, the Boston-based host laughed at the development, noting that — in his estimation — Fox News was counting on Trump to participate in the debate to bring more television viewers to its program.

“They were counting on him to rescue their flailing network and give them a much-needed boost in the ratings,” said Carr. “But it’s not enough that he’s not going to the debate. It’s that he’s side-stepping them. He’s going to do a one-on-one with Tucker Carlson. Oh, man, you know they can’t even talk about it on Fox because it’s apparently a firing offense to mention the T-word; Not Trump, but Tucker.

“And so they’re just they’re whistling past the graveyard. It’s kind of like CNN on election night 2016. They don’t want to talk about it. They’re all weeping.”

Reports earlier this summer revealed Fox News executives met with Trump in an attempt to persuade him to participate in the debate. However, the former President has repeatedly claimed he does not benefit from appearing on the debate stage. He has also referred to Fox News as a “hostile network” after his post-indictment interview with the network’s Bret Baier, who will co-moderate the event Wednesday.

Stephen A. Smith: ‘ESPN Didn’t Have Different Rules for Sage Steele’

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Stephen A. Smith: ‘ESPN Didn’t Have Different Rules for Sage Steele’

Stephen A. Smith doesn’t think a corporation should be in the business of silencing its employees. He also isn’t entirely convinced that is what happened to Sage Steele at ESPN. 

On the Monday edition of the Stephen A. Smith Show, the ESPN host expressed admiration for Steele. He also lauded Megyn Kelly and said she did a good job conducting Steele’s first interview following her ESPN exit. He added though that he he disagreed with Steele’s characterization of the events.

“In fairness, I reached out to Sage Steele to let her know that I don’t necessarily vibe with her assertion that there were different rules for her than everybody else,” he said. “But I do not deny that she’s very passionate about what she feels. She’s not faking it. And she certainly had her examples to point to. And in fairness to her, I have to recognize that she feels the way that she felt.”

Smith claimed to be speaking from personal experience with the network. He says there are times that he has made social or political statements that were met with backlash from his bosses and other times when they were not mentioned to him at all.

“The rules are different depending on the circumstances and the situation which are analyzed and dissected on a case by case basis by ESPN. I would know because it happens to me all the time. Certain issues are bigger than others.”

Sage Steele is an outspoken conservative. Her lawsuit against ESPN stemmed from the belief that she was silenced and retaliated against after expressing opinions on the company’s Covid vaccine policy and Barack Obama’s heritage on Jay Cutler’s podcast Uncut in 2021.

Smith did not specify which subject was the red line for ESPN bosses, but he said that any publicly traded company has to pay attention to backlash and how it affects the bottom line, and courting controversy is not something ESPN was going to tolerate from someone in Steele’s role.

“Different circumstances call for different actions and reactions, also different roles. You’re a pundit on ESPN’s First Take, paid to give your opinions? That’s entirely different than being the host of SportsCenter. And there’s a different responsibility that comes along with that.”

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