‘Sports Rap Radio’ in Detroit is still on its way, just a few weeks after it was initially scheduled to launch. The station, which will feature a lineup of all-Black hosts, was initially set to launch on May 16, however, it has now been pushed back to begin on Monday June 3.

Fox Sports Radio host Rob Parker and a group, which includes former NBA player BJ Armstrong, will air the programming on WXYT 1270 AM through an LMA with Audacy who owns the signal. Parker posted on his X account, “Technical issues got us. Sports Rap Radio IS coming. Be patient. We want to start out of the gate right.”

The lineup for the station was announced on April 30 and will feature Armstrong hosting solo from 10 a.m. to noon, followed by midday show The Bad Boys with Martin Weiss and JR Gamble. Lindsey Hunter, a retired Pistons guard and member of the 2004 NBA championship team, will team up with Detroit native Montezz Allen to co-host “The Pitbulls” afternoon drive show from 3-7 p.m. That will lead into Parker’s national show, The Odd Couple, with Chris Broussard until 10 p.m.

Netflix is reportedly in discussions with the National Football League about exclusively broadcasting two Christmas Day NFL games, something that is being surmised as a reason behind the delayed release of the NFL schedule. Andy “Dirt” Johnson and Brandon Sprague discussed the latest developments with this story and how consumption habits continue to be altered through cord cutting and the rise of digital media through streaming.

Johnson is supportive of the effort, saying he has Netflix and surmises that the quality will be great. In his remarks, he reminded listeners that Netflix will be streaming a bout between Jake Paul and Mike Tyson on July 20. As a whole, he is looking forward to what Netflix is doing – which recently included The Roast of Tom Brady – as it engages in these forays into the sports media industry.

“They’re doing more live content is kind of the point,” Sprague said on Friday’s edition of the Dirt & Sprague morning show on 1080 The Fan. “People are kind of upset by this, and I’m kind of confused by it. So, you might say, ‘It should be on standard cable,’ right? NBC, ABC, CBS, rabbit ears to cable boxes, whatever. I kind of feel like we’re at a place where most people who are consuming TV content have Netflix.”

While Netflix is among the most widely used media platforms worldwide, Johnson expressed a sentiment of pause over if it will be able to captivate viewers and grow interest in sports. This discourse came out of Johnson averring that the Full Swing docuseries was rudimentary at points in that it was explaining the definitions behind golf terminology such as a bogey, par and cut.

“I don’t know how much of that is curtailed to the actual sports fan more so of just people like watching documentaries and you’re finding fans who aren’t normally fans of the sport who just happen to be on Netflix who then hopefully end up watching the sport,” Johnson said. “That’s where I don’t know how much of a crossover you have between sports fans and Netflix.”

The Walt Disney Company and Warner Bros. Discovery recently revealed that they will be creating a bundle with the Disney+, Hulu and Max streaming services to be released this summer. Both companies will also be part of a joint streaming venture that includes FOX Corporation led by chief executive officer Pete Distad. While the offering is scheduled to debut in the fall, the entity is facing an antitrust lawsuit from fuboTV that argues the joint streaming venture would control at least 54% of U.S. sports rights. A hearing date for the preliminary injunction within this antitrust lawsuit has been scheduled for August 7.

“I don’t know what to do, and I feel like I have double purchases of these streams that are existing, and then it’s, ‘Hey, we’ve partnered,’” Sprague said. “They’re basically reinventing cable every week.”

Johnson and Sprague then listed all of the streaming services those in the Portland area need to watch sports, enumerating a total of seven to eight depending on if the Trail Blazers release its own proprietary streaming service next year. Although there is a risk that sports fans could become unwilling to search for games and neglect to watch, Johnson is cognizant of the fact that the NFL could be somewhat immune. Last year, the league garnered an average of 28.7 million across its slate of three games on Christmas Day, a 29% year-over-year increase. Additionally, the Christmas Eve game between the Dallas Cowboys and Miami Dolphins averaged 31.5 million viewers on FOX. 

During the NFL postseason, an exclusive Wild Card round game between the Kansas City Chiefs and Miami Dolphins presented on Peacock secured an average minute audience of 23 million, the most-streamed event in U.S. history. A related study from Antenna found that Peacock retained 71% of subscribers whose sign-ups were attributed to the exclusive contest seven weeks later. Amazon Prime Video will reportedly stream an NFL Wild Card game for the first time this season, coming off an average of approximately 11.9 million viewers across its 16-game slate of Thursday Night Football games.

“The NFL doesn’t really care about this either way though,” Johnson said, referring to viewership of potential games through Netflix on Christmas Day. “Netflix is throwing a butt-ton of cash at them, and they’re going to say, ‘Sure, here you go. Take two Christmas Day games.’ They don’t care if they get 12 million; 19 million; 21 million – they’re just taking the money and running and laughing.”

The arrival of Caitlin Clark, Cameron Brink, Kamilla Cardoso and other rookies in the WNBA, combined with the existing star power in the league, has generated a deluge of interest from sports fans ahead of the 2024 season. No WNBA game has averaged more than 1 million viewers in 16 years, a trend that figures to change based on the trajectory of the NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Tournament and the subsequent WNBA Draft averaging 2.45 million viewers on ESPN. With the Fever playing a preseason game ahead of the start of the regular season next Tuesday, 610 Sports Radio host and University of Iowa alumnus Josh Klingler found himself watching the contest.

Klingler, co-host of Fescoe in the Morning, acknowledged that there were questions surrounding if the success realized by women’s college basketball could translate to the WNBA. Throughout the most recent iteration of March Madness broadcast by The Walt Disney Company (ESPN/ABC), the Final Four averaged 13.8 million viewers, rendering the two most-watched semifinal games on record.

The National Championship Game between Iowa and South Carolina averaged 18.7 million viewers, which represents the most-watched basketball game since 2019 and most-watched sporting event, excluding football and the Olympics, since 2019. Viewership for the game, which is the second most-watched non-Olympic women’s sporting event on record, was up 89% year-over-year and 285% from the 2022 iteration of the contest.

Despite the success of Clark, who broke the NCAA Basketball all-time scoring record in her senior year, Klingler did not think he would be in for WNBA games this season. When his wife began asking about the Fever and when they would be playing, in addition to following the WNBA Draft with her daughter, he was initially unable to answer her question.

“She’s like, ‘Well, when do they play?,’ and I’m like, ‘I think it’s coming up but I don’t know,’” Klingler recalled, “and so I look yesterday and they were going to be playing in a preseason game, the Fever, and so we downloaded the WNBA app and watched the game last night.”

Co-host Bob Fescoe asked Klingler if the platform was better than the Bally Sports app, which has been a topic of discussion on their show because of the glitches it has experienced and its utilization amid uncertainty with Diamond Sports Group and cable providers. The show recently discussed how Diamond Sports Group and Comcast were unable to reach a new carriage deal, thus removing the regional sports network from the service. Klingler replied that everything worked well and that he utilized Fire TV. From there, Fescoe criticized Minnesota Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve for complaining about the promotion of Clark and the Fever, posting on social media about her team’s game using a hashtag that read “#theWismorethanoneplayer.”

“If [Clark] brings more people to the party, it is your job then to promote the other ones that are already at the party, and that’s what this broadcast did. It was great,” Klingler explained, referring to the Fever local broadcast. “They were discussing a whole bunch of people, and they kept saying, ‘Well, we probably have a bunch of Iowa Hawkeye viewers tonight,’ and they were kind of going in depth about the team lineup, and I’m like, ‘This is pretty cool.’”

Klingler felt as if the broadcast was inviting people to watch the game and working to retain them as the season commenced. The Fever will open their season on ESPN2, ESPN+ and Disney+ when they face the Connecticut Sun on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. EST. On the call for the contest is play-by-play announcer Ryan Ruocco, analyst Rebecca Lobo and reporter Holly Rowe.

Ahead of the season, Tegna has broadened the local distribution of Fever games in Indianapolis and 11 additional markets. Fescoe did not understand the problem with the popularity of Clark and how she is helping to grow the game, later comparing her to Tiger Woods and how he created an overall windfall for the game of golf.

“Quite honestly, nobody’s really cared about your league, and now that Caitlin Clark’s in there, you got people that are caring about your league and you’re playing the jealousy card,” Fescoe said. “It’s embarrassing – it really is. If you’re associated with the WNBA and that coach for the Minnesota Lynx complaining about it, go kick rocks. Go kick rocks because she’s benefitting you.”

Whereas Klingler did not prognosticate that he would be watching WNBA games before, he figures to be invested in the Fever this year. In the end, his entire family ended up watching the preseason contest as the Fever secured an 83-80 victory.

“It was amazing,” Klingler said. “I was like, ‘Wow, I didn’t think I’d be here,’ so now I got the alerts. I get the alerts when they’re playing, [and] I think I’m in, at least for a year.”