Fathers and sons have all kinds of relationships. Some become best friends as the kid grows into adulthood. Others don’t talk at all. Some keep a respectable distance – still in touch but not part of each other’s every day lives. Others are linked in ways beyond just familial ties.
Barrett Sports Media is putting a focus on that last group in celebration of Father’s Day. Many sons follow their dads into the family business. It is a unique and special path when that business is broadcasting.
Plenty of the voices you know are the progeny of the voices your parents know. We asked five of them about the influence their father’s work and the environments they were exposed to as kids had on their career.
“We had divorce in our family, and the way that I kept up with them was by watching them on television coming home from high school in St. Louis. I’d see Harry on WGN in the daytime and my dad on the TBS games when the Braves were playing on the west coast back when they were on the National League West. I figured, ‘If I can’t play baseball, this is kind of a cool way to stay involved in the game.’ Luckily for me, when I’d have my summer visitations, I’d get to go to the ballpark and sit behind my dad in the radio and TV booth and watch what he did.”
“Like the old cliche goes, the bug really bit me. The moment that I knew for sure; I was in high school doing one of those sort of weekend internships when I’d be in Atlanta with my dad. He had a game-winning home run call on the radio and we drove home that night after that game against the Dodgers, and they played the home run call of my father at midnight, and the hair on the back of my neck stood up. I said to my dad, ‘I’d really like to do that someday.’ He didn’t say a word; we drove home in silence; we sat down at his house at 1:00 in the morning. He poured himself a cocktail; I had a bite to eat; and he said, ‘Were you serious what you said in the car?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘Okay, we start tomorrow.’”
“I just wanted to be my dad. It’s not like I grew up going, ‘Hey, I really want to be the guy who calls the Super Bowl’ or ‘I really want to be the guy who calls the World Series.’ I guess that was somewhere out there in my mind, but I just wanted to be my dad. I think when you’re a kid and you’re close with, hopefully both parents, but one parent — and I was, by the way; I’m so close to my mom. When you see that parent go to work every day and you see how happy work makes them — no matter what they do — if they’re a lawyer; a plumber; a police officer; an astronaut; or a broadcaster — and you see that, I think it’s only natural that you want to kind of follow in those footsteps. It was a great, fun life. Thankfully, I came along at a time when my dad was ready to kind of take a kid with him to work, and so I was on Cardinals road trips when I was a little kid flying on team charters and being around a broadcast and everything else that is involved with that. It lit a fire in me that really eliminated any other possibility of me doing anything else. This is all I’ve ever wanted to do.”
“Growing up around it seeing my dad every day — when you have a close relationship with a parent, I think it’s just easy to want to emulate and to want to be like that parent. Eventually that’s what happened for me. It wasn’t automatic; I didn’t just immediately say, ‘This is what I’m going to do,’ but I think right around 13 years old was when I made the conscious effort — and not even effort but decision to keep in the back of my head, ‘One day that’s what I’m going to do. One day, I think, that’s exciting to me,’ because I saw him every morning wake up and be excited to go to work; to be excited to do the prep; to be excited to interact with the people. That’s what drew me to it.”
“Gotta be honest, growing up as Billy Packer’s son had its benefits. Granted there were some added pressures and inconveniences, but the good certainly outweighed the bad.
I loved tagging along on road trips whether it be an ACC game, or a national broadcast. Being able to meet players, coaches and other broadcasters was a joy. It helped to establish contacts that I would later implement as a media host.
Watching Billy prepare for games was the biggest benefit to my career. He loved the research and prep work. It is the single, most important trait that I have incorporated with my career. You gotta do the work. When I listen or watch a game or show, it’s obvious to me which announcers have done the work, and which ones are BS-artists.
This will be my first Father’s Day without Billy. He passed away in January….I miss him dearly.
Happy Father’s Day to all the Dads!”
Dads that aren’t in the broadcasting field can steer their kids in that direction by having similar access. That is another path that has been followed in this industry. It would only be right to acknowledge those relationships too.
“When I would watch games, my dad and I would always talk about the announcers and different things they’d say or do that resonated with us. It just made me want to do it. Even from a really young age — if you look at my fifth grade yearbook for career goals — it will say, ‘To play and announce for the Yankees.’ Obviously the playing part didn’t work out but the announcing part has. I just always felt like I knew I’d want to be close to the energy of the game and I thought if I wasn’t going to be able to play or coach, then play-by-play would be the thing that’d be next closest to the energy of the game.”
It’s a day that means all kinds of things to all kinds of people and it is a day worth celebrating, particularly for those of us in sports media, who probably got our love of football, baseball, basketball, or whatever passed down to us. So, do a little bit better for the dads and dad-like figures in your life this year. They don’t need another tie.
When Heidi Watney was selected as the reporter for Boston Red Sox baseball on the NESN, it marked the culmination of a long and arduous process to make it to the big leagues. Reflecting back on the fortuitous break, Watney believes she was unqualified for the role, but she quickly proved the network made the right choice. As soon as she was hired, Watney was assigned a stack of books about the history of the team to study – and she had just five days to do it leading up to her first road trip.
For Watney, a Fresno native, her new job necessitated she move to the East Coast for the first time in her professional career. She was learning the role on the fly since she had never been a genuine sideline reporter, and displayed a dedication to the craft from the very beginning.
“You become a part of the family and you know everything about them,” Watney said. “It was such a wonderful experience. I got to travel on charter flights and stay in these amazing hotels. [As] someone who was born and raised in California my entire life before taking the job at NESN, the whole country was just eye-opening to me and just so much fun and so fascinating.”
From a young age, Watney gravitated to professional sports, often partaking in athletics as a student. Her father, Mike, was the golf coach at Fresno State, and she often attended tournaments and other school events. The football games in particular were invigorating and heightened Watney’s expectations of how college football matchups at the University of San Diego would feel. Unfortunately, she noticed a more apathetic and less engaged crowd, starkly contrasting with her nascent zeal towards competition.
The observation served as an impetus of discovering the extent of her enamorment with sports. Various friends and acquaintances suggested Watney pursue a career in sports media, leading her to consider the best path to penetrate in the industry.
During her formative years in the industry as an intern and professional, Watney learned how to brush off circumstances rather than taking everything personally, and also faced misogyny. Reflecting back on those occurrences, she recognizes the insecurities and internal discomfort that likely caused people to act out, and is glad to see the normalization of women in sports media.
“You learn how to handle and adapt, and I think that’s sage advice for life – adapt and survive – and just learn how to kind of handle things,” Watney said.
When it came time to collect her undergraduate diploma in communication studies, Watney was in the process of searching for her first television job. As is common practice, she had compiled demo reels of her reporting work and sent them to stations around the United States. She was willing to relocate to realize the best opportunity for her to maximize her potential and make inroads in the trade, inexorable in finding a way to succeed.
The competitive industry and fluctuating job market rendered the job search difficult, and it ultimately presented Watney with two choices. She could either move to Amarillo, Texas and work as a weekend sports anchor with a starting annual salary of $17,500; or return to her home in Fresno and aim to find a means of employment at one of the networks. Watney had met with various executives in Fresno, all of whom told her she lacked the necessary experience to work in the market. In the end, and with no guarantee of finding employment, she opted to remain in California, and her persistence and malleability expeditiously paid dividends.
“One of the news directors called me back about a month later and said, ‘Hey, I know you want sports, but we’re starting a morning show,’” Watney recollected. “‘If you’ll do traffic and occasionally weather… then we’ll hire you to do our show.’ The pay was slightly better – not much – but it was my hometown so I could live with my parents as I was making peanuts and starting out in this business.”
Watney was grateful to KMPH FOX 26 for allowing her to pursue sports stories while working as a morning traffic reporter, and she promptly began to make a name for herself in the market. The morning show allowed her to appear on television unscripted for 10 to 15 minutes daily, enabling her to perfect her craft through improvisation and repetition. By her third year, she was named the station’s weekend sports anchor and eventually was named a weekday sports reporter. Additionally, she hosted radio programming on 1430 ESPN Fresno.
After some time passed, the news director of the station suggested to Watney that she should pursue a career in news because of her delivery, knowledge, writing acumen and ability to read off a teleprompter. Additionally, he said she would go further working in news than in sports, but Watney knew sports was what she was most passionate about, and she was not willing to give up on her dream.
“I said, ‘Yeah, I’m not on TV just because I want to be on TV,’” Watney remembered explaining. “‘I love sports [and] telling sports stories. I love covering the excitement and the action of sports [and] love how sports uplifts people. News is bad – I don’t want to talk about people dying,’ so I appreciated his encouragement but I stuck with sports.”
Leaving her hometown of Fresno, Calif. to take the reporting and hosting job with NESN was a seminal moment in Watney’s career. Doing so placed her on an all-sports network for the first time. She learned about the Red Sox amid their quest to remain a perennial contender after winning two championships in a four-year span after an 86-year winless drought.
“I’m not a player on the team; I’m covering the team,” Watney said. “But I was there every single day of the [2011] season and the [three] previous seasons. I felt the crushing blow when I saw the Rays beat the Yankees and knock the Red Sox out of the postseason, basically.”
One of her most memorable moments while working for a regional sports network came in interviewing Jon Lester on the field following his no-hitter. She vividly remembers the disquiet associated with having her voice amplified in front of thousands of fans.
“I had an interview seminar one time – ‘Is this the best? The most?’ Those ‘-st’ kinds of questions are what’s going to elicit a thoughtful response,” Watney said. “Everyone watches games – I watch games – but I also really watch the broadcasters and I watch the questions they ask and I see what gets good responses.”
The survival of regional sports networks has been an ongoing topic of discussion over the last several years in the sports media business. Diamond Sports Group, owner of the Bally Sports-branded regional sports networks, recently declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Sinclair Broadcast Group executive chairman David Smith met with MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred and forewarned that the company would begin to selectively reject contracts if the league did not grant it the valuable direct-to-consumer rights. The rights would help enhance Bally Sports’ DTC offering, but it was a proposition the league immediately shot down, leading to a hearing in bankruptcy court.
After contentious and bitter testimony, the bankruptcy judge ruled that Diamond Sports Group must pay the full value of television rights contracts it previously brokered with teams or renounce the media rights. Moreover, the league reaffirmed how it is prepared to take over regional broadcasts for any of the teams affected, demonstrating as such when Diamond Sports Group chose not to make its right payment to the San Diego Padres. The league positioning itself to make use of the reacquired local media rights while paying afflicted franchises at least 75% of the contract value eliminates blackouts and presents queries about the future of local networks broadcasting professional sports teams altogether. After all, many executives within the industry and consumers alike believe the regional sports network model will not withstand the dynamic, modern media landscape, meaning it is incumbent on sports leagues and networks to pioneer a new age of broadcasting.
“I think that MLB can help start streaming some of the regional stuff so that fans can still have the connections to their team broadcasters, but get it all on streaming content and that’s how these networks are going to survive,” Watney said. “If you’re not getting on the streaming bandwagon, you’re going to kind of go by the wayside.”
It is precisely why Major League Baseball struck a deal with Apple in an effort to bring its product to over-the-top streaming platforms. In addition to Friday Night Baseball on Apple TV+, the league agreed to allow Peacock to exclusively present Sunday morning games on MLB Sunday Leadoff. Both deals give the league a sum of nearly $1.8 billion in annual revenue, and it is supplemented by national revenue from Warner Bros. Discovery, ESPN and FOX Corporation.
Watney signed on with Apple TV+ before the launch of its weekly Friday Night Baseball doubleheader package last season as one of two sideline reporters. Yet she had been removed from working at a regional sports network for the better part of a decade, let alone serving as a regular reporter. Instead, Watney transitioned to become a studio host with MLB Network in 2013.
One of Watney’s primary roles with MLB Network was working as the host of the nightly baseball highlight show, Quick Pitch, where she took viewers around the league to get caught up on the previous day’s action. The show presented a blend of information and entertainment, having hosts communicate with the audience in front of a graphic, acting in scripted routines and recurring bits.
She had always wanted the chance to cover the league at a broader level, and ensured that she would continue working regardless whether or not the Red Sox qualified for the postseason. Furthermore, it provided Watney with more chances for respite coming from a 24/7 job during the baseball season.
“I feel like MLB Network was doing games at Fenway once a week – if not every couple of weeks,” Watney said. “I loved my time at NESN, but I didn’t have a day off from the start of spring training to the end of the postseason. I used to joke that I never went on a date because I was just working all the time.”
Streaming outlets likely represent the future of sports media, and Watney is thrilled to be a hallmark on the timeline of broadcast progression. Not only is her work exclusive to the subscription-based platform, but it also encapsulates a new identity for broadcast reporters and their level of involvement in a typical broadcast.
“By being a streaming platform, Apple TV is helping MLB move into the future,” Watney said. “Some of the younger people already had Apple TV+, so it’s really not anything [new] for them. I think even for older generations that aren’t used to streaming… MLB needs to be on any and all streaming platforms if they want to reach youth – and not to mention social media channels too.”
The challenge the job has presented, specifically during the 2023 regular season, has been condensing the in-game reports and insights and effectively discovering pockets conducive for her input. Making the necessary adjustments was necessitated by rule changes instituted by the league to hasten pace of play and boost offensive output.
“At any point with the pitch clock and with the increased threat of stolen bases, there’s going to be more action in the game, so we have to be more concise with our stories,” Watney said. “We have to pick our spots where we can work something where we tell a story versus covering the action because our job is to broadcast the game. My role in that is to add some color and flavor into the game.”
Two days before the weekly broadcast, Apple TV+ holds a production meeting about the approach to take in covering the game. A researcher sends the broadcast team the necessary information, which everyone reviews and selects the most important storylines. Once they travel to the ballpark, the team meets with team managers to obtain information either on background or off the record entirely, but helpful to be aware of in guiding the specific coverage.
“We’re not necessarily just talking to the diehards,” Watney said. “We’re hoping to reach a larger audience [and] expanding the game of baseball; growing the game of baseball; moving into the streaming world [and] doing more things that people can consume on their phones.”
Apple TV+ airs its MLB Big Inning whiparound show on weeknights and produces additional forums of baseball content through daily recaps, pregame shows and a weekly compilation of standout moments. There are times during the studio programs when elongated versions of Watney’s interviews are aired, and she has been part of conversations about releasing them as standalone pieces of content within the user interface or on social media channels.
“The saddest part about my week is when they’re like, ‘You only have two minutes for your interview,’” Watney said. “I’m like, ‘Why? But I’m talking to Mike Trout; he’s way more interesting than two minutes.’”
Baseball is inherently a team sport where the accomplishments of an individual are arbitrary in the grand scheme of things. In the end, it is the collective play of a unit that determines wins and losses, and personal accolades are not often discussed unless they occur in conjunction with a win. Watney is one of two sideline reporters on Apple TV+’s regular broadcast rotation – the other being Tricia Whitaker, who also works on Bally Sports South’s regional broadcast of the Tampa Bay Rays – and it is the duo’s responsibility to supply compelling storylines on the weekly doubleheader slate and she believes celebrating individuality is what her job requires.
“One of the things that has made baseball so flat in the greater scheme of the sports world that thrives on superstars like LeBron James and Tom Brady and Tim Tebow; these big names – people rally around that,” Watney said. “There’s nothing wrong with celebrating Shohei Ohtani or Mike Trout. That doesn’t take away from his team; that actually brings more eyeballs to the Angels to see what’s going on there.”
Watney’s pursuit of a career in sports media was not entirely clear to her until she was encouraged by people she could trust. The internship she held in San Diego gave her unparalleled exposure and an outlet to discover what areas of the industry she was most interested in, and it is an experience she holds in high regard. As the industry continues to condense operations and streamline processes to cultivate an efficient modus operandi, Watney emphasized the importance of pre-professional experience and displaying an earnest avidity for the work itself.
“Sports happen when everyone’s sitting at home eating their Thanksgiving dinner,” Watney said. “Someone’s out there doing those game broadcasts, so be prepared to work, but it’s also the most rewarding career.”
Female swimmers should be females at birth! Daniel Snyder doesn’t deserve to own an NFL team! Special investigators are thugs! Do you know what a sports talk seller has in common with the NFL, ESPN, and Donald Trump? We all sell hot takes like hotcakes.
Deshaun Watson, Bud Light commercials, the Redskins/Commanders, talk show hosts demanding social justice, and politicians making fun of people are part of the sports and media landscape now. National advertisers and prominent people (as of last May, 11 senators and 50 House members are backing Trump for president in 2024) are all eating at the Hot Takes Café. And, we need to sell more reservations.
Steve Lapa of Lapcom Communications has developed a Sports Talk playbook to aid in selling controversy with his series of 3-minute planner videos and accompanying eBook. Here are Lapa’s six steps to help you prepare for your subsequent sales call to a client who is on the fence about buying ‘controversial’ programming:
Educate – The sports talk format has evolved much like the NFL and ESPN. Your station is discussing the storylines that drive the news cycle. You do have some safety in numbers. Maybe your client sells Bud Light or likes the Commanders!
Audience First – Listeners, followers, and fans are what are essential. And remind the client you are selling access to passionate people looking to support businesses that align with their favorite talk show.
Hail to the Chief – The advertiser is KING. Keep the conversation professional and on a business level. Lapa’s mantra is “Win the business, keep the business, renew the business.” My advice? Shut up about everything else.
Be Relationship Friendly – You never know what is going on with a business. If the client says no or has been advertising but wants to take a break, respect that. They may throw out the “too controversial” objection to hide a change of ownership, employee theft, or key employee turnover. Don’t kill the customer and push too hard.
Togetherness – The sports talk topic table is not the only one being reset constantly. Your client’s business is changing as well. Look at how quickly or slowly they react to change in their own business, and this may tell you how they will respond to your “controversial” programming. We all change at different rates, be patient. It took Augusta National until 1990 to allow black members and 2012 for female membership.
Teamwork Makes the Dream Work – Don’t hesitate to bring your manager or on-air host on calls. Let the client meet the people behind the stories. Remind them of the good the station does by showing them your charity tie-ins and feel-good stories.
We are all in the same sizzling kitchen as the NFL, ESPN, and politicians like Trump, serving up hot takes. The Hot Takes Café is bustling, and as sellers, we need to pack the place. Don’t hesitate to educate your clients on this new direction, and be patient!
Several hours after news broke that WFAN afternoon host Craig Carton would be leaving the station, an unconfirmed report surfaced on Twitter Thursday night. It stated that midday host Tiki Barber would soon be announced as Carton’s replacement.
Author and former New York Daily News and The Athletic NFL columnist Gary Myers tweeted that the former New York Giants running back is planning to be named the new PM drive co-host alongside Evan Roberts on Monday.
Breaking news: @TikiBarber will be replacing @craigcartonlive on afternoon drive time on @WFAN660, teaming with @EvanRobertsWFAN. Sources say announcement is planned for Monday. Congrats to Giants all-time leading rusher who’s been co-hosting WFAN’s midday show.
Barber and co-host Brandon Tierney joined WFAN middays at the start of 2022 after their show, Tiki & Tierney, had an eight-year run on CBS Sports Radio.
Tiki has worked in media since his retirement from the NFL following the 2006 season. He originally began as a featured contributor to Today on NBC.
If true that Barber is going to be joining Roberts in the afternoons, that leaves a vacancy with Tierney in middays at WFAN. Myers was asked in the replies to his tweet if he had any knowledge of Barber’s potential replacement. He indicated that he didn’t know anything about the station’s plans for that slot.
Trump Derangement Syndrome. It started off and remains a disorder amongst liberals. However, I’m starting to fear it’s becoming a thing amongst some conservatives. Actually, let me rephrase. I’m fearing it’s starting to become a thing amongst some conservative media members.
I say this not to downplay the biggest story of the week. A former President being indicted (for the second time in three months) is a major story that should be covered. However, do I think local talk shows should be non-stop, wall-to-wall obsessing over Trump and jockeying for position with butt-kissing monologues to land their next interview with the 45th President? Absolutely not.
Trump Derangement Syndrome can now also be applied to those who obsess over this from a pro-Trump perspective every single day.
We could also give this another name: “Trump Privilege”.
What is “Trump Privilege”? It is when you’re not burdened by the real world, everyday issues of millions of Americans, that you have the time, mental energy, and emotional bandwidth to care obsessively about a former President who, yes, is clearly being politically targeted, but also, if you actually read the 49-page indictment, may have waltzed his way right into a bear trap.
I don’t believe that the average conservative-minded Kansas Citian is waking up every day and thinking about Donald Trump. In the case of our city, I believe that 500,000 residents in Jackson County, Missouri (home to most of Kansas City), are beyond appalled at their tax assessments that are coming in this week and are, on average, up 30-40%. You have working-class families wondering if they can afford to stay in their own homes, as they also deal with two years of inflation.
I think they’re also talking at the water cooler about how the Kansas City Royals announced their two final locations for where they would want to relocate inside the Metro. I think they’re worried about a 911 dispatcher shortage that is resulting in record-long hold times, along with a city being down 300+ cops and trending towards a potential record year for homicides.
Every market is different, but I genuinely don’t think anyone that isn’t either on Donald Trump’s payroll, related to him, or suffering from “Trump Privilege” is waking up every morning obsessing over this latest indictment.
It’s a huge story. It should not be ignored. But for all the years of mocking CNN, MSNBC, and others for their Trump Derangement Syndrome, don’t become them from a different lens.
A segment of your audience will remain rabid over this one issue, but the broader audience has a wider range of interests, is seeking knowledge on a variety of topics, and wants to be entertained, surprised, and presented thought-provoking content unique to your market, beyond how Trump might be getting hosed.
Yes, play the hits, but don’t burn them out faster than they’re already burning
The big news in sports radio on Thursday was that WFAN host Craig Carton would be leaving the afternoon drive show he co-hosts with Evan Roberts to focus on his FS1 morning show full-time.
On 670 The Score in Chicago, Carton’s FS1 co-host Cody Decker did his weekly hit on Bernstein & Holmes. He was pressed for info about Carton’s departure from radio by co-host Laurence Holmes.
Decker didn’t fall for the bait.
“Huh? I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Decker said. “Are you talking about some New York Post thing? I don’t know.”
“Things are changing maybe,” Holmes responded.
Decker continued to act like he wasn’t privy to any inside information.
“Are you under the impression that I know things?” he asked. “Because I don’t.”
Holmes said that he was under the impression that Decker knew things, because Cody was very knowledgeable about a lot of things. Decker left it at sort of being the last one to know anything about anything.
“Oh yeah I do, but not when it comes to my personal career,” he said. “That’s what I used to say to everybody when I was playing. They’d go, ‘Hey Deck when are you getting called up?’ I’d be like, ‘Dude, the last person you should ever ask about my career is me.’ Because I don’t know.”
After the news of Carton’s impending exit was made official, Decker took to Twitter to share his real thoughts. Decker had nothing but glowing things to say about his colleague and the impact he has had on Decker’s career.
There are not enough words in the English language to describe how incredible Craig Carton is on and off the air. I am lucky to know him and even luckier to call him a mentor and friend. He’s a legend is every sense of the word. https://t.co/nHzoWHnxn0
Has the NFL docuseries Hard Knocks run its course? Pat McAfee and his crew think that’s the case.
On Thursday’s edition of The Pat McAfee Show, the question of which team would be featured for the training camp edition of the series came up. The general consensus was that among the five teams the league could force to participate, the New York Jets made the most sense to be featured, mainly because the team went out and acquired quarterback Aaron Rodgers from the Packers.
But that gave way to co-host Ty Schmidt making the point that regardless of what team gets voluntold to allow NFL Films cameras into training camp, the series just doesn’t have the same luster it had when it first debuted.
“Hard Knocks hasn’t been worth a shit in several years,” Schmidt said.
Pat went on to say that Ty’s line of thinking is backed up by the fact that nowadays every team seems to find a way to create and post their own Hard Knocks-esque content on platforms like Twitter.
“You’re saying since social media teams have been doing their own Hard Knocks pretty much all year round,” McAfee said.
“It’s lost steam over the years,” co-host AJ Hawk added.
When the series first launched, football fans were enamored with the fact that a team like the Dallas Cowboys allowed cameras into team and coach meetings, including owner and general manager Jerry Jones making decisions to cut players and even recording the moments those players were told they were being released.
McAfee said that was what drummed up so much interest, combined with the fact that NFL Films could create compelling television with the footage. NFL Films isn’t the reason fans have kind of tuned the series out, McAfee said.
“The access was what everybody loved so much. And the way NFL Films tells a story is obviously fantastic so let’s not get that twisted,” he said.
Schmidt and McAfee both brought up the NFL releasing a trailer on Wednesday for a new Netflix series chronicling the lives of league quarterbacks, saying that what may need to happen is pivoting toward series like that and away from the Hard Knocks format.
“But whenever you’re getting so much content already from the spots now at this point – we weren’t then – now at this point, it does make you think like are they gonna have to dodge, duck, dip, dive and dodge their way through this era of content to separate themselves,” Pat said. “And the quarterback one feels like the right answer.”
While a lot of the focus with the Diamond Sports Group bankruptcy has surrounded deals Bally Sports had with professional teams, a contract the network had to air ACC football and basketball games has been rejected.
Yahoo reported Thursday that Diamond Sports Group and Gray Television’s sports production unit Raycom had reached a deal to end their carriage of select ACC football and men’s and women’s basketball games even prior to the Chapter 11 filing in March.
Bally Sports aired 43 men’s basketball and 25 women’s basketball games during the 2022-23 season.
The decision to part ways now allows the conference to seek out a new partner to carry games in those sports that wouldn’t otherwise get coverage by ESPN.
Offshore sportsbooks allow users to bet on a number of things that would not be allowed at a licensed online or brick-and-mortar sportsbook in the United States. Entertainment and current events bets are popular options and it seems like Bovada is breaking new ground in that territory.
The site has listed odds for six names as the potential successor to Craig Carton in afternoon drive on WFAN. It could be the first time a sports radio station has been the subject of betting action amongst more than just friends.
Whoever gets the job is expected to work with Evan Roberts. Two names mentioned in the New York Postare listed with the best odds. Former Giants running back and WFAN mid day host Tiki Barber is the Bovada favorite at -115, meaning you would have to bet $1.15 to win a dollar. Right behind him is Entourage star and Carton’s friend Jerry Ferrara at -110.
Current WFAN hosts occupy three sports on the board. Carton’s former partner and morning drive host Boomer Esiason is at +600 odds. Keith McPherson, who hosts nights, is listed at +1500. Overnighter Sal Licata is at +2000.
The only other name from outside of the WFAN universe is Kevin Clancey. Better known to Barstool fans as KFC, is a New Yorker and a regular guest on the station. He is listed with +950 odds.
Craig Carton’s final day on WFAN’s afternoon program will be June 30. He is expected to remain with the station to host his Saturday show even as TV becomes his full-time focus.
If the Texas Rangers got their way, Bally’s Sports Southwest would have missed its rights payment according to Cory Magoers.
“I’m guessing maybe the Rangers aren’t super thrilled about that,” the K&C Masterpiece co-host said Thursday on 105.3 The Fan in Dallas.
The relationship between the Rangers and the RSN’s parent company Diamond Sports Group has been complicated. Diamond only gave the franchise 75% of what it was owed in its last rights payment. According to Magoers, at some point, the Rangers must have received the rest of what they were owed, because Diamond is now “in good standing” with its debt to the team.
Co-host and former Rangers pitcher Mike Bacsik said it isn’t hard to believe Magoers’s hunch is correct. Diamond making its next payment on time means that the Rangers cannot take their television rights to the open market.
“You assume this TV money keeps going up. It’s not going down,” he said. “So if they were to get out of this long-term contract, yeah, they would lose money immediately, but they would gain so much more money over the next 5 to 10 years because the new contract they would either do on their own, where they would own their own rights and there wouldn’t be a middleman, or if they signed a new contract with another station. It would be way more money.”
Diamond has already lost the broadcast rights to the San Diego Padres. That team’s games are now streamed by Major League Baseball. The Rangers, Arizona Diamondbacks, Cincinnati Reds, and Minnesota Twins have been facing the possibility that they would be in the same boat soon.
Magoers says nothing changes for now. It doesn’t seem likely that things are smoothed over between the two sides for the long-term though. He says there is reason to believe the Rangers want to be done with Bally Sports Southwest as soon as possible.
“Remember, the Texas Rangers are the team that filed a motion back in March to terminate their contract and Diamond Sports Group’s counterargument was this isn’t worth what we’re paying and so we want it to be less.”
