NBC Sports continues to show its desire to get the most of its investment into Matthew Berry’s fantasy football expertise and they have added one more step.
Berry’s show, Fantasy Football Pregame with Matthew Berry, will now get national exposure on CNBC. The company plans to air the program in the 12p ET on most Sundays. To this point, the show has been an exclusive to Peacock.
CNBC averaged 9,000 viewers two weeks ago (September 18) in that same time slot and 8,000 viewers last week (September 25).
On ESPN, ESPN2’s Fantasy Football Now on Sunday mornings is averaging 366,000 viewers thru three weeks, down 2% from last season.
Louisiana sports radio station ESPN Lafayette has rebranded as 103.3 The Goat.
The station is now featuring a positioning statement of “The Greatest Sports Talk of All Time”. Local shows continue on the station as Lynden Burton hosts Rise & Grind from 6:00-7:00 AM CT, while Scott Prather hosts The Great S.C.O.T.T. Show from 7:00 AM-9:00 AM. The Dan Patrick Show and The Rich Eisen Show cover middays while ESPN Radio programming rounds out the rest of the day, according to the station’s website.
The re-brand coincides with the University of Louisiana’s homecoming festivities. The Goat is the radio flagship of the Ragin’ Cajuns radio network.
SHOWTIME Basketball is part of the Showtime vertical. Some of the SHOWTIME Basketball projects included Kevin Garnett: Anything Is Possible, Passion Play: Russell Westbrook, Quiet Storm: The Ron Artest Story, Shut Up and Dribble, Kobe Bryant’s Muse, Basketball County: In the Water and NYC Point Gods.
“We are delighted to welcome Rachel Nichols to the SHOWTIME Basketball family,” said Brian Dailey, Senior Vice President, Sports Programming & Content, Showtime Networks Inc. “Rachel brings unmatched journalistic credibility, great familiarity with our roster and a work ethic that will take us to another level.”
“I’ve been so fortunate to live my dream job alongside some of the best journalists in the business for more than 25 years, and this new development deal with SHOWTIME Sports gives me my most broad playing field yet,” said Nichols. “They’ve asked me to produce, create and host new sports programming across platforms, working alongside Hall of Famers, multiple guys with championship rings and an uber-creative team behind the camera. We’re going to have so much fun.”
Nichols left ESPN in earlier this year after a private conversation was taped and leaked that including her complaining that ESPN chose Maria Taylor to host the NBA Finals pregame show over her.
She also addressed her exit from ESPN in an interview with theAll the Smoke podcast.
“Things got complicated later that season. You all know, it was 2020. We had a pandemic. There was the tragic murder of your friend, George Floyd. There were a lot of difficult conversations with this country looking itself in the face and seeing what had to change, what had to be different. And The New York Times did an expose in July of 2020 on racism at ESPN and the lack of opportunities for people of color. And the executives at ESPN said, I think, about what people would expect, ‘We’d like to give people more opportunities, we’re continuing to grow,’ all of those things.”
“Around that same time, I got a phone call asking me would I step aside for Maria to host the NBA Finals and have me go back to being a sideline reporter. They stressed it was my choice, they weren’t telling me to do this, because it was in my contract. But they were putting a lot of pressure on me. I was being told ‘Well, you’re not a team player.’ Which any woman in business knows is code, right? Women are supposed to be kumbaya, and team players, and helpful, and men are aggressive sharks, and all that? I just felt like ‘Hey, I worked so long, decades for this job. I have done everything that was asked. We put on some great shows leading up to the playoffs. And I wanted a chance to do it.”
Texas Rangers television analyst Tom Grieve is slated to retire at the end of the season.
Grieve has been with the Rangers broadcast team for 28 seasons. Rangers managing partner Tom Schieffer said listening to Grieve was “like going to the game with a friend”.
Grieve worked with Josh Lewin from 2002-2010. Lewin told TheDallas Morning News Grieve “made it so ridiculous easy because he had no ego. He was so accommodating. I was a bull in a china shop, and he was the kindly uncle I didn’t know I needed. He showed me what it was to man up.”
He became a broadcaster after a nine-year MLB career with the Washington Senators, Texas Rangers, New York Mets, and St. Louis Cardinals. He also served as General Manager of the Rangers from 1984-1994. He worked full-time on broadcasts from 1995 through 2017, before splitting duties with C.J. Nitkowski.
The “hot take” shows aren’t the best environment for some media personalities to thrive and show off their skillset. While you’ve seen ESPN MLB insider Jeff Passan on First Take before debating with Stephen A. Smith, he admittedly will say it’s not the best show for him.
“I’m not great there. The way that my brain works, I can never sit here and say something definitive unless I feel like I have got some good evidence to back it up. There’s a marketplace for that. People love it. I think it’s great. It’s just not my thing, not something I do very well.”
Passan admitted on the guest spot that he’s not the greatest guest for hot take shows.
“People are just prisoners of the moment. It’s why I suck on hot take shows and why I’m just not a good guest sometimes because I refuse to sit here and say that’s what happened over the last week and last month is indicative of a whole lot.”
He would later add that on a hot take show that he would have to be different than who he is normally is in order to have success as a guest on those shows.
“I think I’m a terrible actor because I couldn’t fake that. I’m saying I would have to act differently than I normally do.”
While giving a “hot take” might not be best for him, he did mention that he has a ton of respect for the people on First Take because they have a unique talent that gets people to watch the show every weekday.
“I think everyone on First Take is brilliant. People watch everyday to see what they have to say. That’s an art right there.”
Even though Passan thinks he does not thrive on hot take shows, he is still a must-listen for his baseball acumen and the entertaining way that he can deliver information. Plus, it always helps when people can admit that something isn’t a strength of theirs. However, he did share his take on whether or not Aaron Judge would have the single-season home run record if he hits his 62nd home run? Let’s just say he thinks Barry Bonds has the record.
“73. Did 73 balls go over fences? Then, that’s the record.”
Fox Sports Radio morning co-host LaVar Arrington has announced a multi-platform deal with creator and host of Sport Science John Brenkus and Brinx.TV.
The two entities have created a show called The NIL House, which will feature Brenkus and Rob Vaka discussing the latest news, biggest stories, athletes, collectives, and celebrities in the Name, Image, and Likeness space.
“We are thrilled to be partnering with a pioneer like John Brenkus and Brinx.TV,” said Arrington. “This relationship will dramatically expedite our slate of programming and positively impact the sports entertainment industry.”
“LaVar Arrington has dominated the world of sports on and off the field,” adds Brenkus. “By combining Up On Game and Brinx.TV’s distribution platforms, there really is no limit to our success.”
Up On Game Presents is the podcast platform Arrington curates, in conjunction with Fox Sports Radio. The Up On Game podcast features Arrington and former NFL Pro Bowl wide receivers T.J. Houshmandzadeh and Plaxico Burress.
Brinx.TV was created in February of 2021 and allows subscribers the ability to watch live programming while also make purchases, bid in auctions, buy NFTs, and answer trivia questions.
Monday morning, Miami radio listeners will hear a new station on 790 AM. Sports radio programming will be gone. Instead, what used to be 790 The Ticket will be the new home of Radio Libre, a Spanish-language conservative talk network.
When the news became public on Thursday, many in the radio industry expressed grief and surprise on social media. Brian “The Beast” London, who spent seven years at the station, said he started to suspect something was up last month.
“As soon as I saw that Miami Heat games would be on 560 WQAM instead of 790 The Ticket, I knew 790 The Ticket would be coming to an end,” he said in a video posted to his YouTube page, “because the Heat and 790 The Ticket – synonymous.”
The Heat had been heard on 790 The Ticket since 2008. In August, Audacy, which owns both stations, announced that the franchise would call WQAM its new flagship.
The next sign was the exit of Jonathan Zaslow last week. Zaslow’s midday show moved from 790. He spent nearly a year on WQAM before being let go.
“Listen, I don’t think Zaslow liked me,” London said bluntly. “Whether you thought Zaslow was good or bad, he was a staple in this market. He didn’t deserve to lose his job.”
London, who was let go from The Ticket’s morning show in 2018, said ceasing operation of the station was a clear money move. Now, Audacy doesn’t have to pay anyone associated with 790, as Radio Libre’s parent company, Americano Media, will lease time on the frequency.
He highlighted some of the financial trouble Audacy has had in recent years but said that in Miami, sports media members have been feeling the effects ever since Entercom and CBS Radio merged in 2017, bringing WQAM and 790 The Ticket under one roof.
“They ruined a bunch of people’s lives because they made a bunch of bad business decisions. One of the bad business decisions was having two AM sports radio stations.”
New York Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge tied the American League home run record earlier this week, hitting his 61st blast of the season. YES Network announcer Michael Kay defended his home run call by pointing out the fact that regardless of the people ahead of Judge on the single-season list being potentially “tainted” by steroid allegations, they still hit more home runs.
During The Michael Kay Show, Kay and co-hosts Don La Greca and Peter Rosenberg were discussing the comments made by Roger Maris Jr. saying his father’s record is the “real record” for hitting 61 home runs in 1961 without the help of performance enhancing drugs.
“Really it’s everybody’s own individual feeling, but to ask Major League Baseball to take an eraser out and say Bonds out, McGwire out, Sosa out, they’re not gonna do it. They’re not gonna do it,” Kay reiterated. “You can say it, and that’s why when making the call — although it’s wordy and clunky — you have to say he is the American League home run leader. You can’t say he’s the home run leader. He’s not! The record books tell you he’s not!”
La Greca then told Kay he was stating facts and was obligated to the facts. He added “you can’t give an opinion on it. The record says that Bonds broke the record”.
The KFAN morning show, The Power Trip, hosted their show Friday from London as the Minnesota Vikings prepare to face the New Orleans Saints in the United Kingdom’s capital city.
“G’day mates!” is how the show began, before saying they were broadcasting next to the “River Tims”. They were then corrected on the air for the correct pronunciation of Thames.
The cast of the show mentioned they were having trouble connecting to the internet to remain on the air, even joking that they asked patrons to turn the wifi off on their phones to help the problem before the show began.
They also joked that since it was 11:30 AM local time, 5:30 AM Central back in Minneapolis, it was permissible to already be drinking a Guinness draught beer.
A large contingent of Vikings fans were in attendance at The Barrowboy & Banker Bar near the Tower of London and London Bridge.
President Joe Biden received backlash after attending a fundraiser Wednesday evening while Hurricane Ian made landfall in Florida. One of his largest critics was conservative radio host Howie Carr, who lamented the lack of coverage over Biden’s perceived “blunder”. He also added Fox News should do more to highlight Biden’s “cognitive decline”.
“You know what I hear today on MSNBC and CNN? I hear the sound of crickets talking about the fundraiser last night during the devastation in Florida,” Carr said. “Joe Biden just gets a complete pass, like he always does.”
Carr continued by interviewing author Joe Concha who has released a book called “Come On, Man!”: The Truth About Joe Biden’s Terrible, Horrible, No-Good , Very Bad Presidency” asking why doesn’t Fox News take more shots at Biden, like he and a small portion of radio hosts do, saying while audio clips of Biden’s blunders make good radio, the video provides more context and is a more powerful statement on television.
