BSM Writers
Why Black Athletes Don’t Trust The Owners
Baseball’s latest debacle — an idea that two teams would stage a symbolic walkout, then return to play a game — is an ill-timed indictment of sports leagues and their cluelessness in fighting racial inequality.

Published
3 years agoon
By
Jay Mariotti
We have two killer diseases in this country, one invisible and the other as blatant as seven gunshots fired toward a Black man’s back. If COVID-19 is insidious, police brutality is the naked terror. Imagine life as an African-American basketball player right now, locked down in a science globe by a league and two broadcast networks, watching the savagery in Wisconsin and figuring America is the same slave nation that oppressed their parents, grandparents and ancestors.
They are being paid, yes. But they do not trust The Man, so to speak. They wonder why Adam Silver, the commissioner who convinced them to resume this disjointed season, hasn’t been in the NBA Bubble and why the league’s interest in amplifying social justice initiatives has waned during the playoffs. And they don’t trust the owners, nearly all white men, even if sports has made many of the players wealthy and renowned. They want these billionaires to use their tentacles to influence politicians, regardless of party or persuasion, and stop the bloody massacre of Black people by white cops.
That message was just beginning to resonate Thursday throughout a $200-billion industry, allowing sports to avoid a devastating domino-effect stoppage, if only until the next shooting. But there to muck it up, as usual, were the socially ignorant klutzes of Major League Baseball, creating even more distrust a day after the NBA season was nearly shuttered by LeBron James, Kawhi Leonard and other players feeling helpless in fighting racial inequality from their Disney World confinement. The MLB lords have been stuck in self-sabotage for decades, undermining their sport with endless scandals, a sluggish on-field product and an existential disconnect with younger people. Their failures are as commonplace as another 450-foot pummeling of a juiced ball.
Still, it’s beyond comprehension that this old-fart operation, long mired in a racial crisis with its scarcity of Black players and executives, not only would delay a unified response to the shooting of Jacob Blake but also turn a New York ceremony into a finger-pointing farce.

Jackie Robinson shattered racial barriers in Brooklyn, a few miles from what is now Citi Field. He would have been ashamed to see the dysfunction in the hours preceding what should have been a simple edict: postponing the Mets-Miami Marlins game, following the lead of all other major-league games on the day’s schedule. I don’t trust the entirety of MLB leadership, so I’m still not sure who’s telling the truth and who might be in cover-up or throw-under-bus mode. But knowing the raw ineptitude of commissioner Rob Manfred, I’m not ready to assume Mets general manager Brodie Van Wagenen was mistaken when he accused Manfred of asking Mets and Marlins players to do the unthinkable: Walk off the field as a tribute to Blake, then return an hour later to … PLAY A BALLGAME?
The idea did come from someone’s convoluted mind. Would Manfred be so crass to prioritize scheduling issues, an ongoing quagmire in baseball’s nightmarish pandemic season, over the Black Lives Matter movement? It would be a fireable offense, another death knell for the sport, yet that is exactly what Van Wagenen suggested in the latest leaked video to burn a sports figure. Talking with two Mets colleagues in late afternoon as the fate of the game was being decided, Van Wagenen ripped Manfred as a leader who “doesn’t get it’’ while failing to understand that Mets players had zero interest in playing. What the loose-lipped GM didn’t know is what everyone should know in the 21st century: His conversation, which referenced an earlier meeting with Mets chief operating officer Jeff Wilpon, was being streamed on MLB.com. Minutes later, the video was posted on the team site, where it was discovered by a 20-year-old New Yorker who naturally shipped the clip into the breaking news viralsphere.
Said Van Wagenen to the others: “Baseball’s trying to come up with a solution, saying, `Oh, you know what would be super powerful’ — the three of us here, this can’t leave this room — `you know it’d be really great if you just have them all take the field and then they leave the field and then they come back and play at 8:10. And I was like, ‘What?’ I told Jeff … these guys aren’t playing. They’re not playing. But that’s Rob’s instinct.
“At a leadership level, he doesn’t get it. He just doesn’t get it.’’
He’s right. Manfred doesn’t get it, period, about anything. But that isn’t the point here. Three white men named Brodie, Rob and Jeff were making America Look Stupid Again. Had they already forgotten the powerful words of the previous night from Mets outfielder Dominic Smith? Weeping and choking up during an interview, Smith carved himself a place in history by saying this of the Blake shooting and racism in America: “The most difficult part is to see that people still don’t care. For this to continually happen, it just shows the hate in people’s hearts. That just sucks, you know. Being a black man in America is not easy.’’ All you need to know about the Mets is that the goofish Alex Rodriguez, part of a group angling to buy the team, would be a marked boardroom improvement over Fred Wilpon and his son. So, of course, they botched the Smith moment.
What followed was pure tragicomedy. Van Wagenen, an ill-advised hire with no management experience after a career as a sports agent, released a statement, saying he had the story wrong. It was Jeff Wilpon’s idea, he said — the most overt case of ratting out a boss in recent sports memory.

“Jeff Wilpon called Commissioner Manfred this afternoon to notify him that our players voted not to play,” he said. “They discussed the challenges of rescheduling the game. Jeff proposed an idea of playing the game an hour later. I misunderstood that this was the Commissioner’s idea. In actuality, this was Jeff’s suggestion. The players had already made their decision so I felt the suggestion was not helpful. My frustration with the Commissioner was wrong and unfounded. I apologize to the Commissioner for my disrespectful comments and poor judgement in inaccurately describing the contents of his private conversation with Jeff Wilpon.”
Later, in case everyone didn’t hear him the first time, Van Wagenen reiterated his apology during a conference call. “I have put myself and this organization into this conversation in a way that takes away from the real point,’’ he said. “I’m disappointed in myself.”
Or, was he was dutifully covering Manfred’s ass, with Wilpon’s approval, so the commissioner could avoid epic humiliation and nationwide calls to replace him with whatever fool wants the gig?
If Wilpon did hatch the plan, as he claimed, just be happy the Mets are on the sales block, assuming anyone really wants them. “To clear up any misunderstandings, it was my suggestion to potentially look into playing the game later because of scheduling issues,” Wilpon said. “Brody’s misunderstanding of a private conversation was and is inexcusable.’’
Somewhere on a Florida campus, LeBron was cringing. He had come close to taking down a league — and perhaps all of North American sports, by extension — when he walked out of a volatile players’ meeting after both Los Angeles teams, James’ Lakers and the Clippers, had voted to end the NBA postseason and go home. Now, here was living proof that executives and commissioners are clueless about social injustice. The players who questioned James in the ballroom might have said he was being selfish, that he could afford financially to pop the Bubble when they needed the paychecks. But if LeBron was thinking about himself, it was his legacy as an activist, which currently takes precedence over a fourth championship. After a night of sleep and a cooling of heads, the NBA playoffs carry on. But the games have lost their momentum, after a fun ride of basketball story lines, and any chatter about title contenders has been replaced by when the players next threaten to ditch the Bubble.
“You forget that being in the bubble is hard,’’ said Clippers coach Doc Rivers, who thought the season was over when his team initially voted no. “I don’t think it’s coincidence that everyone in this bubble seems to be a little more emotional. I’m not kidding, it’s true. I think part of the effect of being, like, jammed together every day, it has had that effect on everyone.” Besides, James is busy fighting the White House. “NBA players are very fortunate that they have the financial position where they’re able to take a night off from work without having to have the consequences,’’ said Jared Kushner, President Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law, as the league was postponing two days of games.
After James fired back a tweet — “Change doesn’t happen with just talk!! It happens with action and needs to happen NOW! — Kushner offered to make peace. “Look, if LeBron James reached out to the White House or we could reach out to him, we’re happy to talk with him and say, `Look, let’s both agree on what we want to accomplish, and let’s come up with a common pathway to get there,’ ‘’ he said.
Trump was too busy ignoring the coronavirus during his re-nomination speech to react specifically to James, which surely bugs LeBron. “I don’t know much about the NBA protest,” Trump said. “I know their ratings have been very bad because I think people are a little tired of the NBA. They’ve become like a political organization, and that’s not a good thing.”
At least NBA players have an ally in Silver, though a message was sent through ESPN reporter Marc Spears that the commissioner needs to get “a helicopter’’ and invest more Bubble time with them. It could be worse: Their leader could be Manfred. That such a debacle could happen in such a sensitive time in history is another indictment of a man who shouldn’t have his job. Manfred can’t even control the buffoonery of a team across the East River from his midtown Manhattan office, much less guide baseball through an absurdist pandemic season interrupted by virus outbreaks and game shutdowns. He, too, issued a statement: “Over the past two days, players on a number of Clubs have decided not to play games. I have said both publicly and privately that I respect the decisions and support the need to address social injustice. I have not attempted in any way to prevent players from expressing themselves by not playing, nor have I suggested any alternative form of protest to any Club personnel or any player. Any suggestion to the contrary is wrong.”
Do you see a denial in there about Manfred asking the Mets and Marlins to play an hour after a symbolic walkout? Me, neither.
Only the NHL, which finally postponed games after criticism for not doing so the previous night, has had a weaker response to Jacob Blake than MLB. The Mets and Marlins did share a tender moment, standing for a moment of silence and placing a Black Lives Matter t-shirt on home plate before leaving the park — without a ballgame. Smith led the Mets onto the field, his tears having inspired the sports world. “It’s still overwhelming at this moment, just to see how moved my peers are — my teammates, my brothers, the front office, the coaching staff, everybody who talks to me on a daily basis,’’ he said. “Just to see how moved they were, it made me feel really good inside. It made me feel like we are on the right path of change.’’

The silence lasted 42 seconds. It came on the eve of Jackie Robinson Day, when every major-leaguer wears No. 42, even if a pandemic shifted the date from its usual April 15. The players and their tribute, it seemed, had saved the commissioner and Mets management from themselves.
But the reprieve was only temporary, as always. “It needs to be an ongoing thing,’’ Miami’s Lewis Brinson said of the Robinson tribute. “It can’t just be one day out of the baseball year that we bring light to everything.’’
“I think he would be amazed at the lack of progress in his eyes,” said Milwaukee’s Lorenzo Cain. “The fact we’re talking about this in 2020, I don’t see the progress in that. It’s almost like we’re going backwards.”
If this is a time machine, it might take us to the point of no return.

Jay Mariotti, called “the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes a weekly media column for Barrett Sports Media and regular sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts in production today. He’s an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and radio talk host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects. Compensation for this column is donated to the Chicago Sun-Times Charity Trust.
BSM Writers
Ian Eagle Showed Every Broadcaster the Value of Knowing Pop Culture
“Clearly it pays to be a Swiftie.”

Published
9 hours agoon
September 21, 2023By
Andy Masur
The internet was abuzz last Sunday when CBS NFL play-by-play guy Ian Eagle dropped a tremendous pop culture reference on air. During the Kansas City/Jacksonville game, Travis Kelce of the Chiefs caught a touchdown pass like he normally does. You’ve probably heard by now that Kelce and Taylor Swift have been linked romantically and Eagle took full advantage after calling the touchdown.
“Kelce finds a blank space for the score,” Eagle said referencing the song “Blank Space” from Swift’s 2014 album 1989.
A timely reference in the sense that the possible relationship is fresh in people’s minds and Swift has been top of mind recently with her ERAS Tour. It was a mention of something that many, many people would understand. Oh, and Kelce catches a lot of touchdown passes too.
“Clearly it pays to be a Swiftie.” Eagle told me via email. “My phone blew up after the Kelce touchdown grab, and the last thing I wanted to be was the ‘Anti-Hero.’” clearly Eagle can’t help himself.
I asked Eagle if that was something he specifically prepared for that moment?
“After all of the Swift/Kelce gossip last week, I knew going into the Chiefs/Jaguars game antennas were up.” Eagle said. “I don’t plan on anything specific but I do come prepared if situations arise, and when Patrick Mahomes hit his TE in the endzone it felt like an opportunity to tag the call.”
For those that watch Eagle on a regular basis, be it on a basketball or football telecast, this isn’t something new.
“I’ve always tried to sprinkle in some pop culture references when appropriate and have learned to trust my instincts. Of course, you run the risk of alienating a segment of your audience if you go the esoteric route, but this felt like the right line and the right time.” said Eagle.
Every play-by-play announcer tries them, to varying degrees of success. If it’s a good reference, the internet will explode. Conversely if it is not, you guessed it, the internet will also explode. The professionals know when the time is right and clearly Eagle was spot on.
“When I heard from my sister (who is not a big sports fan) I realized it had crossed over into the mainstream, a reminder that you never really know what’s going to resonate with viewers,” he said. “At this particular moment you can’t go wrong with Taylor Swift.”
That is very true. So, when should you try it and when shouldn’t you “go for it?” It’s not a cut and dry case. I like it when I hear a really good reference,. There is always room in a broadcast for a little levity, but don’t let the comedy overrun your broadcast. Pick and choose the moments carefully.
It’s also different when you’re broadcasting a game than it is during say, a television or radio sportscast. There is no script when it comes to play-by-play.
I’ve tried it in both roles. In 2015, I was doing television games for the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Before the game the crew and I were talking about the movie, The Big Lebowski, a cult classic.
They dared me to work in as many lines of the movie as I could in the broadcast. I thought, “yeah, this is going to be easy.” It really wasn’t, I worked in 8 lines and to tell you the truth, I’m not sure how many landed.

It’s hard to really know. The crew laughing in your headset is not a true indication, because they were in on it. Viewer feedback was non-existent. Would I try that again? Probably not.
Every year for the last 4, on Oscar Sunday, I do an “Oscars themed” sportscast at 11am. I work in the titles of all the movies up for Best Picture into the framework of my sports. For example:
- “The Madness of March continues today with more automatic bids going out with EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE on the line to get to the NCAA Tournament.”
- “Cubs faced the Dodgers and beat them 5-2…the win helped Chicago sports fans avoid a TRIANGLE OF SADNESS after the Hawks and White Sox lost their games.”
I do this ONCE a year and the feedback from listeners has been great. It’s a nice challenge and change of pace for me. It entertains the audience as well. It’s current references tied to an event that is watched by many, many people.
Eagle, in his CBS broadcast, didn’t force the reference in there. He picked a spot, knew the relevance and went for it. That’s another key. Make sure the reference fits the moment. Don’t just go using pop culture just to use it. We’ve talked a lot about that in previous columns, regarding other things as well. Make sure the reference isn’t coming at a critical time in the game.
Some broadcasters make pop culture part of their play-by-play calls. Randy Moller did it with the Florida Panthers several years ago. He spent 8 seasons with the Panthers and would yell out references to movies and television shows on some goal calls.
- “Mommmmm! The meatloaf! Panthers with a power play goal they get a 1-0 lead!”
- “Another shot by Moore! He shoots he scores! Time to make the donuts!”
Moller is now the team’s television analyst, but he would delight fans with those radio calls. But Moller was also careful. He wouldn’t fire off a Wedding Crashers line on every goal. No, the pop culture references were uttered after a goal when the Panthers were out of a game. Makes sense.
Don’t overload a broadcast with the things not everyone in your audience will understand or appreciate. Don’t overload the broadcast if it overshadows the game you’re broadcasting.
I mentioned earlier about it being a little easier to work in movie lines, television show lines and song lyrics into a scripted sportscast on radio or television. Some local tv anchors have had ‘theme’ nights over the years. Where they try to work in references to a movie or a show, in the flow of that day’s sports news. In scouring the internet, there was one example that I had forgotten about but is worth remembering.
In 2016, then Louisville sports anchor Adam Lefkoe (now of TNT) worked in 41 “Seinfeld” classic lines in a 5-minute sportscast. He used Twitter to crowd source the lines and he wove them in as easily as George double-dipped his chip. It worked. It was funny and made sense even within the framework of the cast. It was a bunch of ‘mainstream’ mentions. “Seinfeld” was one of the most popular sitcoms of all-time. Pretty much everybody, young, old and in between saw the show in first run or reruns. All of the references landed because it was familiar and known, not stuff buried in a ‘cult classic’ that only a handful of people would understand.
Comic references can be a great thing, but as I’ve pointed out, in the wrong hands, can flop in a big way. You have to know your audience. You have to make sure the reference is clear and known by a large amount of people, otherwise it’s useless. Don’t drop lines to amuse yourself or your crew, the game is not there for only your entertainment. Make sure the viewers will find it funny too. There is room in a sports broadcast for comedy. Just don’t go overboard. Have a feel for the game and the situation. Understand your audience as well. If comedy is your thing, remember just like in stand-up, timing is everything.

Andy Masur is a columnist for BSM and works for WGN Radio as an anchor and play-by-play announcer. He also teaches broadcasting at the Illinois Media School. During his career he has called games for the Chicago Cubs, San Diego Padres and Chicago White Sox. He can be found on Twitter @Andy_Masur1 or you can reach him by email at [email protected].
BSM Writers
Meet the Podcasters – Mike Golic, DraftKings
“I’m sixty years old, I’ve seen the change, but in all honesty, to me, you turn the microphone on and I’m just doing a show.”

Published
1 day agoon
September 20, 2023
You won’t find Mike Golic on the radio anymore. That may be a little hard to believe for some of us. He was one of the constants of ESPN Radio through so many different eras and iterations of the lineup.
He is still doing a morning show though. Gojo & Golic features himself and his son talking about life and sports. It airs live on DraftKings Network and is distributed digitally each morning.
The new platform means Golic had to learn some new tricks. It also means that some of what he was doing all along worked well enough that someone wanted to pay him to keep doing it as the sports media industry changed.
The key to his success has been recognizing which mindset is the right one for each situation.
Demetri Ravanos: In the podcast world, we talk a lot about the power of niches, right? It’s a crowded space. Everybody has a podcast, so you’ve got to find your way in. But you and your son are doing a big, broad show. So what efforts are you guys making to make sure you stand out in that crowded field?
Mike Golic: I don’t know if we particularly sit there and say ‘we need to do something to stand out.’ Let’s be honest. When I was on the radio years ago, there wasn’t a lot going on in talk radio, and then as we went on, a lot more, different talk radio came out. Now, as you just mentioned, we’ve got podcasts and streaming and every which way you can you can get shows out there. The way I’ve always done it is I’m always just doing it like a show. The microphone hasn’t changed in front of me. The show Mike and I did when we were at ESPN, it’s and the way Mike does the show when he was doing it on his own and the way I do a show that hasn’t changed. We’re not reinventing the wheel.
I know when new shows come out, they say ‘we’re going to do this’ or ‘we’re going to do that.’ We’re just doing the show. We’re just doing the show that we’ve done and it’s getting distributed in different ways now. To me, that’s the only difference. It’s not changing the way I do a show.
I was used to 23 years of 6-10 doing morning radio in Phoenix before I got to ESPN. Mic goes on at six and mic goes off at ten. Now, Mike and I are back. Our show is a podcast, but it’s also live from 8 to 10 Eastern every morning on Samsung TV Plus and DraftKings’ YouTube, DraftKings Network, and it’s going to now start to be broader, I think, starting next week with more outlets. So we’re back to doing it’s kind of a live show, but obviously, it still gets turned into a podcast.
DR: You know, you, you do bring up something though, that I wonder about because you were in radio for a long, long time, local before national. A lot of us that came from a more traditional media world, it took a while to see that podcasting or digital media was this viable space. Maybe it is less glamorous, but the ability to find an audience is just as strong. Do you remember the moment that you started to realize that like, “Hey, this digital thing isn’t the future. It is right now”?
MG: Oh, yeah. Not only from the digital side but doing Mike and Mike all of a sudden getting into Twitter and getting instant feedback. You start talking about a topic on air and you get instant feedback on Twitter.
For me, I keep goofing around and saying it. You know, I’m sixty years old, I’ve seen the change, but in all honesty, to me, you turn the microphone on and I’m just doing a show. I’m not when I go on to do Gojo & Golic, when I go on God Bless Football with Stu and Billy and Mikey, and when I go on with Golic and Smetty for DraftKings, I’m just doing what I did since I started doing shows. It’s just different time segments for me. Mike (Jr.) Is probably better to talk to about this than me. I and I’m probably not giving you great stuff of what you want, but I don’t really view it differently. I still a mike goes on. I’m doing a show and then the show ends.
Probably one of the biggest differences for me is, I did a four-hour show. I think the average listener was like 22 minutes in the car or they were at home getting ready, watching on TV. Then they jumped in the car to listen on radio was 22 minutes. So we would have to repeat the headlines. Here, on streaming or podcasts, you don’t really do that. You don’t really repeat the lines and keep re-introducing the guests. So there are some technical differences in doing podcasts and the live streaming now as opposed to the radio show, but those are stuff you just kind of pick up quick.
DR: Do you think not having to re-set the headlines is the strength of digital content for the audience? Particularly with the NFL, there is such an appetite for content out there that there has to be things that the digital space can do that traditional media cannot. I wonder if it is that ability to say over the course of 2 hours, we aren’t going to repeat ourselves. We’re going to have a two-hour discussion of this one topic.
MG: That’s probably the biggest thing out there. When you go from a headline where we talk about Aaron Rodgers getting hurt – we talked about it once off the top and we may have sprinkled it in there in a different way on some other parts of the show, but it’s not completely resetting the whole Aaron Rodgers story at the top of an hour and then the top of the next hour, starting again with the whole Aaron Rodgers story. We don’t do that. That is definitely a big difference of how people take this in. I always I still sit there and wonder, “Should we be hit the Aaron Rodgers injury again?” or whatever the big story is.
Our show is two one-hour podcasts. You know it’s not a two-hour podcast. So it’s all split up differently. Minds a lot smarter and more current than mine know the best ways of how to divvy up the conversation. That’s why I do lean heavily on Mike (Jr.) as far as kind of the make up and way we run his show. That’s something that has definitely changed over time.
Content is still content. We’re going to talk about we’re going to give our opinions, we’re going to take people inside. We’re going to talk about things going on. Now it’s just how it gets dispersed has changed from my years in radio.
DR: Well, let’s talk about that content, because you are working under the DraftKings heading and the goal of any show is to be a compelling personality that people want to come back to over and over again, right? But being attached to a sportsbook, how much of Gojo & Golic feels like just the two of you talking versus having to come in with an education on things that may move the line in a game one way or the other? Not hardcore betting talk, but at least you can’t get that stuff wrong.
MG: Basically, how we’ve approached this because yeah, that was a thought process when I signed. I told them, “Listen, I don’t know the in-depth parts of gambling” and they said, “We don’t care. We want to become a sports media outlet as well.” They have vision and others who could talk.
I know how to talk lines. I can give my opinion on whether I think one team’s going to beat another team by five and a half points or score over 50. I mean, that’s that’s been around forever. But anything more in-depth than that we’re not expected to do that.
I think that’s the biggest thing in getting that out with DraftKings is, yes, it’s a sportsbook like FanDuel, but DraftKings is also trying to get in the sports media market as well and eventually have a 24-hour network that will have shows like Mike and I and more traditional gambling shows as well that will come from VSiN, where they’re stationed in Vegas or from DraftKings in Boston. In all honesty, that’s just about repetition and just letting people know that our show is out there every day and that every day, this is a sports show just like we did together at ESPN. That’s what it is.
Way back in the day we just picked games, Greeny and I would simply answer who was going to win or lose. We didn’t really do the line. It was almost like gambling, it was coded amongst the old-time play-by-play guys. “There’s a reason to keep watching this game late in the fourth quarter” and everybody knew what they were talking about. Now it’s all out in the open.
It’s kind of like NIL. You took the bag of money under the table and you put it on top of the table. The NFL finally learned how much money you can make in gambling. It’s exploded becoming legal in state after state after state now. So that’s one of the things Mike and I we’re real happy with DraftKings is they want it to obviously be a big part of the market in that. But also they don’t want to just be that. They want to be where sports fans are. Sports fans do gamble, but sports fans like sports talk and they like sports stories, so why not try and give them both? So that gave DraftKings the idea to say. “Just do a sports show! If every now and then you have a gambling segment, we’ll get you a guest to talk about that, to dive in deep to it!.” Just like, back in the day, you’d have to get a guest to dive into fantasy football to break it down. We definitely are not a gambling show. It’s just going to be a matter of getting that out of the minds of people that just will just naturally think, “Oh, if it’s DraftKings, it’s got to be a gambling show.”
DR: You were part of one of the shows, maybe the show that pioneered putting radio on television. Now we’re in a world where, in the digital media space, having video is almost a necessity for a podcast to really reach its maximum audience. Are you, even this many years later, still surprised that people want to watch audio on TV or the Internet?
MG: Oh, without a doubt. We learned that when we started over on ESPN News and ESPN2. Greeny and I, a couple of years into the show, it was different. Now it’s not different anymore. It’s the norm. You have to do it. Nobody just wants audio. They want something to look at and then it becomes “what can you put with it? What graphics, what video, what pictures can you put with it to make it entertaining?”
The biggest thing we wanted to do, and I still think it kind of needed to be that way, when we were going from radio to TV, I personally had NFL Tonight, I was like, “Oh my God, You know, every studio, TV show at ESPN, you had to put on a tie.” When they said, your radio show is going on TV. I’m like, “Oh God, do I got to put on a coat and tie?” And they were like, “No, this is a radio show on TV. So treat it like that.”
I was happy about that. It’s a little more loosey-goosey. It’s not the traditional studio show where a host comes to you and you have 45 seconds to make your one-shot point to the camera. This is free flowing conversation that just had video around it.
That’s the way I’ll always look at it, that we are still telling stories, giving opinions. It’s still a talk show, but with video around it, but don’t turn it into a segmented type of a TV show where you talk then I talk. The best show is a conversation, even studio shows. Make it a conversation. Bring people into your conversation. That’s never going to change.
DR: You guys had a great moment of that I thought. It might have been earlier this week where you and Junior were arguing about whether or not you had the right to claim a shirt he left at your house as your own. I thought that was a very relatable moment.
MG: And that’s never going to change, you know? Like I said, I still treat it like radio. I have always, always said, especially in the morning, you’re getting people that are that are on their way to work however they’re digesting. It could be at work, could be at home getting ready to go to work. My thought has always been take them somewhere they can’t go. The mind of an athlete on the field, of an athlete in the locker room, of an athlete in any sport, and make them laugh a little bit, make them smile a little bit, or talk about something that’s relatable to them. You know, taking shirts or taking clothes or food or things like that. That has not changed since day one.
All my gigs have basically been in the morning since I started doing this. People are starting their day. Let them smile or laugh about something, Don’t be blue. I never cross that R-rated line because I know people are driving their kids to work. That’s still one of the greatest responses I got over the years. A guy would say, “Me and my dad or me and my mom were with you on the way to school. We didn’t have to turn the station.” That doesn’t change. The idea of what you’re going to do doesn’t change. Entertain people, give them information, make them smile a little bit. It’s just the way they’re delivered may change a bit.
DR: So I want to wrap up with you on a question about your podcasting history in general, because the Golic family has been really quick to embrace the format, even back at ESPN when you guys were doing your family show. I wonder how you look back at that because from the outside, it was a very interesting thing. Here were two guys, you and Junior, that I know from this network that I watch all the time talking about sports, but you found this weird way to cross podcasting with reality TV in a way that I don’t know that I’ve seen anyone else do on a grand scale even since.
MG: That and the Sorry In Advance podcast, our family podcast, was all my wife’s idea. We’re a very close family anyway, but it was kind of a fun thing to do every couple of weeks to actually all be together just to talk about life. You get the stories of my daughter-in-law, Jenny, thinking rotating tires, is just putting the car on a jack and spinning the tires or, other stories that just kind of kind of make you laugh but are relatable. It’s not talking down to anybody. We had fun doing that. It just got hard. My daughter is married. She’s pregnant. Her husband, who used to play in the NFL, was in med school. Jake and Jenny are running two businesses and they now have a baby. It’s just it’s tough to get everybody together again. We ran into issues doing that.
I would love to have some help from somebody on how to go about the business part of it, because this was truly from scratch, and doing it on our own. We started to get very little help toward the end of it. It would really be a lot of fun if we had backing in this and a little more professionalism around us because God knows we’re not professional in helping and guiding us to this and because we’d like to keep doing it.
To learn more about Point-To-Point Marketing’s Podcast and Broadcast Audience Development Marketing strategies, contact Tim Bronsil at [email protected] or 513-702-5072.

Demetri Ravanos is the Assistant Content Director for Barrett Sports Media. He hosts the Chewing Clock and Media Noise podcasts. He occasionally fills in on stations across the Carolinas. Previous stops include WAVH and WZEW in Mobile, AL, WBPT in Birmingham, AL and WBBB, WPTK and WDNC in Raleigh, NC. You can find him on Twitter @DemetriRavanos and reach him by email at [email protected].
BSM Writers
Is ESPN New York Giving Up or Getting Stronger?
I go back to the same question: Is giving up your FM signal a waving-the-white-flag moment, or is it putting your resources elsewhere?

Published
1 day agoon
September 20, 2023
A massive sports radio story dropped on Tuesday. 98.7 ESPN New York is dropping the 98.7 next year.
It seems like curious timing, no? At a time when AM radio is fighting for its life, it’s rare for a station to drop its FM signal instead of its AM.
On the surface, to be frank, it appears to be a cheapskate move. Good Karma Brands making a decision to pocket a reported $12.5 million every year to not have an FM signal sounds like half-assing a radio station in the nation’s largest market.
But then, when you look at the decision through a different prism, I keep going back to the same question: Is giving up your FM signal a waving-the-white-flag moment, or is it putting your resources elsewhere?
If the 98.7 ESPN New York actually does put those resources elsewhere, then yes, it makes sense. If the move becomes something other than just a way to pocket a couple million bucks each year, then I’m all for it. Investing in more local talent, bigger on-air promotions, stronger play-by-play rights, or better video channels/equipment all make sense with newfound millions in the budget. But I’m skeptical that it isn’t simply a cost-saving measure.
However, the reasoning put forth does make sense. The station claims more than half of its audience doesn’t listen on the 98.7 FM signal. That, in and of itself, should be reason enough to at least examine what you’re doing as a company.
I’ve long been a proponent that sports radio has long needed a digital revolution. I also strongly believe in recognizing that in today’s media landscape, you need to put your content on as many distribution channels as possible. AM/FM Radio, websites, mobile apps, social media, Twitch/Rumble/YouTube/linear or cable television, are all must-have outlets in 2023. I just never imagined that FM radio would be the first one to go.
Obviously, Good Karma Brands believes it can make this work. The company operates stations in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Cleveland strictly on the AM band and digital platforms. And in an ever-increasing on-demand world, maybe making your content primarily available through digital channels is a smart bet.
I just can’t help but wonder if it isn’t a decision five years too early. There are still millions of listeners in the New York market that utilize FM radio. That number isn’t likely to experience a steep decline in the coming years. But AM radio will, in my opinion.
The station is likely to lose or see significant alterations to its play-by-play rights with the New York Knicks and New York Rangers. Who knows what will happen to the rights of the New York Jets? One could imagine that if those franchises wanted to be on AM radio, they would go with one of the many other, more widely listened to, options in the market like 880 WCBS, 1010 WINS, 77 WABC, or 710 WOR.
Make no mistake about it, the move is a gamble. And it feels like a gamble with no middle ground. Either this move works wonders and Good Karma Brands ends up looking like radio visionaries, or they’re making a decision that will ultimately lead to killing a strong brand. There’s no in-between. Let’s see how it plays out. I’ll be watching. Closely.

Garrett Searight is the Editor of Barrett Sports Media and Barrett News Media. He previously was the Program Director and Afternoon Co-Host on 93.1 The Fan in Lima, OH. He is also a play-by-play announcer for TV and Radio broadcasts in Western Ohio. Reach him at [email protected].