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Bell In, Bailey Out At 92.9 The Game

Jason Barrett

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Morning host Jason Bailey is out and former 790/The Zone afternoon host Mike Bell is in at 92.9/The Game.

Bell came on air at 3 p.m. today to announce his arrival. Starting Monday, Bell officially joins Carl Dukes and the show time will add an extra hour, ending at 7 p.m. instead of 6 p.m. The show will air from 2 to 7 p.m.

Up to this point, 92.9/The Game has failed to – or resisted – hiring any talent from 790/The Zone. (The 2 Live Stewsanybody?)

Bell –  who was on the Zone for 15 years  until it dumped local programming in May – has been under contract with the station until December, 2015.

His agent Norm Schrutt was able to convince Zone owner Lincoln Financial to let Bell out of his non-compete clause in exchange for not having to pay him fully for another 17-plus months. “Lincoln was very fair,” Schrutt said. “It took awhile but it works out well.” (Schrutt also represents Carl Dukes.)

On air, Bell today discussed with Dukes about how the Braves’ Dan Uggla was finally released. “We both got paid to do nothing!” Bell cracked. The show took calls from very excited, very happy callers, asking him to do signature voices such as the late Cubs announcer Harry Carey and wrestler Dusty Rhodes.

Bailey, who was there for just a year, will be replaced by Marc James, the new afternoon guy with Dukes the past two months since the Game hired James and Mark Zinno for nights at about the same time. (Zinno’s show will run from 7 to 10 p.m. instead of 6 to 10 p.m.)

Bailey came from Florida last year, hoping his self-assured persona would click with the Atlanta audience. His bossTerry Foxx last fall said he hired Bailey because he’s not just a sports guy – he’s an entertainer first and foremost. “He’s not a traditional host,” Foxx said at the time. “He kind of lives on the edge.”

Although the Game’s ratings overall have been disappointing, you can’t necessarily blame Bailey. Listenership for the morning show among 25 to 54 year olds is actually up 47 percent year over year. The previous show featuring Rick Kimla (now in mid days) with Randy Crossaveraged a 0.75 rating over the first six months of 2013. Bailey with Cross helped improve that to a 1.1 rating for the first half of this year.

Besides Jamie Dukes, Randy Cross, CJ Simpson (since gone) and Mitch Evans, 92.9/The Game to date has largely hired on-air broadcasters with no Atlanta ties since it debuted in October, 2012. It has tried to differentiate itself by being live and local 24/7 and providing outsider perspectives. Unfortunately, this has failed to generate powerful ratings given its powerful 64,000 watt signaland remains behind dominant No. 1 sports talk station 680/The Fan, also heard on 93.7 on the FM dial.

But the station is making progress closing the gap with the Fan. As a whole, the Game averaged a 0.75 in overall listeners the first half of 2013 and is now up to a 1.1. I can’t report the ratings for the Fan because they are not subscribers to Nielsen Audio but I can say that their ratings dropped by about the same amount. They still hold a decent lead over the Game.

The battle is by no means over between the two stations.

For the rest of this story visit the Atlanta Journal Constitution where it was originally published

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Doug Gottlieb: I Would Give Up Radio For Coaching Job

“I’ve told people that for the radio element to — for the right thing — I’d give it up. The (podcast), I’m not giving it up.”

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Fox Sports Radio host Doug Gottlieb recently interviewed for the vacant head coaching job at Wisconsin-Green Bay and detailed the experience on his podcast.

“I got a chance to talk to (Wisconsin-Green Bay AD) Josh Moon several times during the year after they had made their coaching job available and my approach to how I’ve done these things — and this is not the first time I’ve gone down this path, but this was a different path,” Gottlieb said on his All Ball podcast.

“This is a low-major, mid-major job, and there’s no connection there. I’ve told people that for the radio element to — for the right thing — I’d give it up. The (podcast), I’m not giving it up. I love doing it and I think there’s a very smart world where if I’m coaching I can still do this podcast and still do it with basketball people all over the country and the world, and it’s kind of like a cheat code.”

He continued by saying that seeing Shaka Smart be successful at Marquette has motivated him to continue to search for the right fit as a college basketball coach.

“That’s what I want to do. And last year when I was coaching in Israel, that also continued to invigorate me…this is something that I would really like to do. It has to be the right thing. It has to be the right AD who hits the right message.”

He continued by saying that a sticking point of negotiations was he wasn’t willing to give up his nationally syndicated radio program for the job. He was willing to take less money for his assistants pool, but also to continue doing his radio show.

Gottlieb did not get the position with the Phoenix, noting that he was a finalist but was never offered the job. The position ultimately went to Wyoming assistant coach Sundance Wicks. Wicks had previous head coaching experience and had worked with Green Bay athletic director Josh Moon at Division II Northern State. He admitted he wasn’t necessarily “all-in” on the job due to the current ages of his children and whether the timing was right to uproot his family to move to Northeastern Wisconsin.

The Fox Sports Radio host does have coaching experience. He has worked as a coach for the U.S. men’s basketball team at the Maccabiah Games, sometimes referred to as the Jewish Olympics.

Gottlieb’s father — Bob — was the head men’s basketball coach at Wisconsin-Milwaukee from 1975-1980, compiling a 97-91 record.

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Waddle & Silvy: Scott Hanson Told Us to Lose His Number

“We didn’t call him back, so he set out what he wanted to do.”

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Aaron Rodgers took immense pride in the fact that he told ESPN NFL Insider Adam Schefter to “lose his number” while discussing his future earlier this week on The Pat McAfee Show. ESPN 1000’s Waddle & Silvy said they’ve experienced similar treatment from guests on their radio show.

While discussing the Rodgers interview with McAfee, the pair admitted that NFL RedZone host Scott Hanson once told their producer to stop trying to book him for interviews on the program.

“I believe the presentation was ‘Do me a favor: lose my number after this interview’,” Tom Waddle said. “So he tried to do it politely. Scott Hanson did. Get out of here. That concept is foreign to me. How about ‘Hey, next time you text me, my schedule is full. I can’t do it, but thanks for thinking of me’. ‘Lose my number?’ You ain’t the President, for Christ’s sake. I’m saying that to anyone who would say that. ‘Lose my number?’ We’re all in the communication business. I just don’t know — why be rude like that to people? What does that accomplish? You know what it accomplished? We didn’t call him back, so he set out what he wanted to do.”

Co-host Mark Silverman then mentioned that the show once tried to book Hansen and NFL Red Zone host Andrew Siciliano together in the same block, with the idea of doing a trivia game to see who the supreme Red Zone host was. Siciliano agreed, but Hansen declined.

The pair also confirmed that an NFL Network personality had told them to lose their number, but couldn’t remember if it was Rich Eisen or not.

Silverman later joked that maybe Hanson was getting a new phone with a new number, and was politely sharing with the producer that he could lose the current phone number because he would share his new number in short order.

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Seth Payne: Aaron Rodgers ‘Makes Gross Inaccuracies’ When Calling Out Media

“This is where Rodgers does this thing where he, in calling out reporters for their inaccuracies, makes gross inaccuracies in his accusations.”

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Aaron Rodgers

Aaron Rodgers is always mad at the media for the inaccurate things he says they report, but according to Sports Radio 610 morning man Seth Payne, no one is more inaccurate than the quarterback himself.

Friday morning, Payne and his partner Sean Pendergast played audio of Aaron Rodgers responding to a question about a list of players he provided to the Jets demanding they sign. Rodgers called the idea that he would make demands “so stupid” and chastised ESPN reporter Dianna Russini, who was the first to report it.

“Now to be clear, Dianna Russini didn’t say demands in her tweet. She said wishlist,” Pendergast clarified.

They also played a clip of Russini responding to Rodgers on NFL Live saying that she stands by her reporting and it is her job to reach out to confirm that it is true.

“This is where Rodgers does this thing where he, in calling out reporters for their inaccuracies, makes gross inaccuracies in his accusations,” Seth Payne said.

He added that if Rodgers is being serious, he is doing some serious nitpicking. He claims that he didn’t give the Jets a list, but that he spoke glowingly about former teammates and told the Jets executives that he met with who he enjoyed playing with during his career.

Payne joked that maybe he wrote down the names in a circle pattern so that it was not a list. Pendergast added that he could have had Fat Head stickers on his wall that he pointed to instead of writing anything at all.

In Payne’s mind, this is a case of Russini catching stray frustration. Neither in her initial tweet nor in any subsequent media appearance did she use the phrase “demands”.

“What he’s actually responding to in that instance is Pat McAfee is the one that described it as a list of demands,” Seth Payne said.

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