The Sports Media Thread

[TheBigFiz21]

18 hours ago, infrared41 said:

 

Setting aside podcasts, etc. - The short answer is local radio is on the way out because radio doesn't like to spend money. As a result, you're not getting hosts capable of bringing in an audience which results in low ratings which results in less ad revenue which results in less money to get good hosts. When faced with the choice, radio management will almost always choose to pay someone 10 bucks an hour to board-op a national show over paying a local host real money to do a local show. Frankly, I'm kinda surprised local sports shows still exist and I say that as someone who worked in radio for a long time. FWIW, I haven't listened to a local sports talk show in years.

 

 

I've found myself trending that way since 2017 or so. I listen to more Dan Patrick during the week than I do anything locally. I come back to the stations here and nothing keeps my ear the way it did 10 years ago, for instance. I sincerely want to go back and listen the way that I did back then, but things have changed. There were two hosts that came in on weekends that I really enjoyed hearing....but they were let go. And they just let go of Orioles baseball for another station to pick it up, probably because they didn't want to lose more listeners while the team isn't in serious contention for postseason play. Then again, there was a short time where the station didn't have the Orioles when I was younger and I enjoyed the weekday evening host at the time. Either way, it's 2021 and it's getting harder to listen when there's guys on YouTube who I can interact with in a livestream during a Ravens game or a podcast that I can listen to on my time discussing all the topics I want to hear without having to wait as long as the flow of the program.

[Sport]

I used to listen to our local guy Mo Egger all the time. He's actually really level headed, smart, pretty funny, and doesn't get into a lot of hot take nonsense, which is likely the reason he's not a national guy. But I've been spoiled by podcasts and I can't do radio anymore. The content to ads ratio is unbeatable and I can mash the 15 second skip button on my steering wheel. Plus the conversations are longer and more in-depth. I don't know how anyone listens to talk radio anymore. 

[CS85]

Looks like the New York Times is buying The Athletic for $500+ million.

 

I enjoy my discounted Athletic subscription, but I'm guessing my paying $20/yr will become void, requiring $20/mo.

[SFGiants58]

I discontinued my subscription some time ago because I just wasn’t reading anything on there. I’m not a sports journalism guy these days. If I need updates, I’ll get them through team-specific or sports-specific subreddits. I also prefer books for my history-oriented sports journalism.

Hell, the only sports podcast I listen to is Crime in Sports, which frequently has very little sports talk.

[Digby]

I really like the Athletic and I think it's worth the full price. Of course I kept finding Cyber Monday deals along the way, but still. The gap between how engaged I am by the Athletic's homepage right now and the NYT Sports' page is large! Hope they keep it a separate property.

[SFGiants58]

You had me sold at “John C. Reilly as Dr. Jerry Buss.”

 

 

[spartacat_12]

3 hours ago, SFGiants58 said:

You had me sold at “John C. Reilly as Dr. Jerry Buss.”

 

 

Apparently this series is responsible for the deterioration of Adam McKay & Will Ferrell's personal & professional relationship. Ferrell is a huge Laker fan and said that Buss was his dream role. He was initially linked to the part before the producers decided to go with Reilly instead. McKay didn't even call Ferrell to let him know before the story broke.

[Geoff]

Bringing it back to sports radio, Greg was 100% spot on. When I worked in radio, I was making $9.50/hr to be the "Operations Manager." I was responsible for making the schedule for myself, the other full time hourly worker, as well as the part-timers and interns. I was told by both the owner and GM to not schedule myself for more than 36 hours a week "just in case." They didn't outright say they didn't want to pay me OT but that's the only conclusion you can make. I'd always end up working 40 hours a week somehow because I would find random crap to do or I'd take my time driving the hour back from the HS game we were broadcasting. I also worked at least one hour a day for 29 straight days at times. 

 

The GM and owner often times weren't on the same page. When I started, the owner said I could dabble in sales if I wanted to and some of the sales reps would give me some pointers. Then the new owner of the station told me if I did that, I would have to do it off the clock but he would pay me commission on it. Basically, he didn't want me "wasting time" on it so that's why he told me that. He didn't think it would be worth it despite me having corporate sales contacts from my time with the Ice Flyers who didn't want to advertise on the station, even on the broadcasts of the Ice Flyers games)  unless I was getting a cut.

 

There's a new version of the station that's actually doing things the right way from the looks of it (a.k.a. hiring decent people and giving them an actual budget),

[infrared41]

14 hours ago, Geoff said:

Bringing it back to sports radio, Greg was 100% spot on. When I worked in radio, I was making $9.50/hr to be the "Operations Manager."

 

Sounds about right. My first job as a program director was for an AM sports station in Syracuse where I was hosting an afternoon drive talk show. After my promotion, I was getting paid a whopping $7.75 an hour. To further illustrate just how little it pays to be in radio, I got the promotion to program director and the raise  from $7.00 an hour (7 bucks an hour to host a talk show, mind you)  because I had been offered a job as an evening DJ on a music station in Charlottesville, VA for big bucks - $8.00 an hour. That was in 1996. In today's money, I was making about 14 bucks an hour. The sad part is that I seriously doubt most of the  DJs at small market music stations today are making 14 bucks an hour. If those stations even have live DJs which is doubtful.

 

The most money I ever made in radio was when I worked for Premiere Radio as a "field consultant."  For radio, that gig paid pretty good. I was making $45K and I worked from home. That was in 1999 so in today's money it's about $72,000 a year.

 

 

[Sport]

My dad worked in radio for 25 years and when I graduated from college in 2010 he offered to set me up with some connections, but pretty flatly said, "but you really don't want to work in radio. Especially now." 

[monkeypower]

Yeah, I ditched the radio world just over five years ago now. I was in news, but did colour commentary for about half of the home games the local Jr. A team (which how that shook out was part of the reason I left) and was the defacto second sports reporter because the PxP position's day role the sports reporter.

 

I could go on for a while the issues that newsroom had at the time and from still occasionally following the news website we launched, they definitely changed the approach to news for the better at some point after I left (couldn't tell you how long ago I first noticed the change) because that approach to the news initially following the launch of the website was the main reason people left the newsroom.

[infrared41]

10 hours ago, Sport said:

My dad worked in radio for 25 years and when I graduated from college in 2010 he offered to set me up with some connections, but pretty flatly said, "but you really don't want to work in radio. Especially now." 

 

Trust me, you absolutely made the right choice. Especially in 2010. Working in radio can be a lot of fun. I had the good fortune to run three of the five different stations I worked at in my career. Of those five stations, working at four of them was a blast. The fifth one is what started my exit from the industry. That place went out of it's way to suck all the fun out of working at a radio station. It was like working at Mr.Potter's bank in It's a Wonderful Life except not as much fun.  I did my best to shield my staff from all the misery, but that just got me in more trouble with the company president.

 

Eventually, I said it and tried to get fired. After four months of trying, I finally unlocked the code by taking a day off to go to an Indians playoff game. When I came in the next day, the company president was there waiting for me. He asked "was it worth it?" Knowing this was going to be it, I decided to get my money's worth. I said "I'll get another radio job, but I may never have another shot at sitting behind home plate at an MLB playoff game so yeah, it was totally worth it." He proceeded to say "In all your time here, I've never understood you" to which I replied "and that's the problem. You run this place like a bank and no one likes working for you. Now since you just fired me, I'm done with this conversation." If I'd had any guts at all I would have added "now go yourself."

 

FWIW, it's been 24 years and to this day that station still uses the same marketing campaign that I implemented. I'm kinda proud of that. That said, letting me talk about my days in radio is a bad idea. As this post has proven, I tend to go on and on about it.

[officeglenn]

If you were a fan of Jay & Dan on TSN or FS1, Dan O'Toole has launched a podcast called Boomsies! now that his non-compete clause from his firing from TSN has expired: 

 

[Sport]

It came out today that The Seattle Times fired Marisa Ingemi as one of their Kraken beat reporters in late January. Can't find a reason for her firing online other than s***head stoolies calling her a liar for something she wrote about Dave Portnoy last year. 

[infrared41]

45 minutes ago, Sport said:

It came out today that The Seattle Times fired Marisa Ingemi as one of their Kraken beat reporters in late January. Can't find a reason for her firing online other than s***head stoolies calling her a liar for something she wrote about Dave Portnoy last year. 

 

Upsetting the stoolies should have gotten her a raise and a promotion.

[DG_ThenNowForever]

54 minutes ago, Sport said:

It came out today that The Seattle Times fired Marisa Ingemi as one of their Kraken beat reporters in late January. Can't find a reason for her firing online other than s***head stoolies calling her a liar for something she wrote about Dave Portnoy last year. 

 

 

Barstool is a cancer.

[Wings2]

2 hours ago, Sport said:

It came out today that The Seattle Times fired Marisa Ingemi as one of their Kraken beat reporters in late January. Can't find a reason for her firing online other than s***head stoolies calling her a liar for something she wrote about Dave Portnoy last year. 

 

:censored: Dave Portnoy. Yeah I just said that. 

[monkeypower]

3 hours ago, Sport said:

It came out today that The Seattle Times fired Marisa Ingemi as one of their Kraken beat reporters in late January. Can't find a reason for her firing online other than s***head stoolies calling her a liar for something she wrote about Dave Portnoy last year. 

 

I actually don't think Barstool had anything to do with it, despite what the mouth breathing Stoolies on Twitter might think.

 

She at best misremembered, at worst blatantly lied (and I can't really give her much of a benefit of a doubt considering how easily disprovable the thing she said was) about Portnoy/Barstool in that article she wrote about the whole Barstool-NWHL fallout, but that was before she was hired for the Kraken role and everybody on either side just kind of moved on, so I can't see a way that the Portnoy/Barstool thing had any impact this late in the game.

 

I see that she was fired two weeks short of her six month probationary period, so she could have been let go for a myriad of reasons. It does seem odd though. She did post this tweet on the same day she was told she was fired, which may have played a part? 

 

Per the Defector article from the petition from other Seattle Times staff members.

 

Quote

 She was told, however, by her editor and managing editor Lynn Jacobson, that she was being fired, claiming issues with her writing. She was given no notice.

 

Seems vague enough?

[Kevin W.]

4 hours ago, Wings2 said:

 

Dave Portnoy. Yeah I just said that. 

Do you mean alleged sexual predator Dave Portnoy?

[Wings2]

6 minutes ago, Kevin W. said:

Do you mean alleged sexual predator Dave Portnoy?

 

Yes. That piece of :censored:.