On Tuesday, Doug Gottlieb played a clip on his FOX Sports Radio show of Russell Westbrook explaining why he has started going back at fans that call him names. In the clip, Westbrook talked about his son’s teacher telling him how much his son enjoyed writing their last name. Westbrook said it was the first time he really understood that the name meant something and it made him less likely to blowoff personal shots from fans.
Gottlieb said that name calling from the media is nothing new. He pointed out Jim Rome famously calling Jim Everett Chris and referring to tennis star Arancha Sanchez Vicario as “A raunchy chick from the barrio”. Gottlieb also noted that as Rome has gotten older, he has given up the nicknames.
The same cannot be said for FS1’s Skip Bayless. Doug Gottlieb singled him out as a major factor in influencing fans to mistreat players.
“Let’s just say it,” Gottlieb said. “I understand he works for FOX Sports. I understand he makes a ton of money. I think it’s disgraceful what Skip Bayless has done. He made feminine references to Chris Bosh, which is reprehensible and so is this. You can’t normalize this behavior.”
Bayless’s behavior is a lot like former President Donald Trump according to Gottlieb. He said that both have plenty of fans, but those fans cannot justify the way each guy talks about and treats people he does not like.
“What are you doing? You’re 70-years-old. You’ve been covering sports your entire life. You don’t call people names.”
Skip Bayless has taken to calling Russell Westbrook “Westbrick”. Gottlieb said that criticism is fair. This is one of the worst seasons he can remember a former MVP having and Westbrook is absolutely struggling with shooting and turnovers.
According to Gottlieb, it is another example of Bayless, who he says has “made a career out of being a LeBron hater” for the last 12 years, going for low-hanging fruit. It is something that he says players notice and talk about with other members of the media.
“If you ask people in the NBA, they will say like ‘Why would you call people names? You’re 70-years-old.’”
Doug Gottlieb noted that he realized both men were on the FOX payroll. He doesn’t expect his comments to lead to any drama though. He said that anyone looking to run to Bayless for comments are wasting their time. There won’t be a confrontation between the two.
“Don’t worry. I won’t be on that show. He doesn’t let people that want to comeback at things like that on his show.”
How deep is the talent rotation at ESPN? Not very according to Fred Toucher. The 98.5 The Sports Hub morning host has certainly noticed that the network is turning to a small handfull of stars to do the bulk of the work.
“ESPN is now like three people, and Stephen A. Smith is on in the morning. He’s on the radio. He does a podcast. He’s at all the games. He does the postgames,” morning host Fred Toucher said. “Imagine if we had a microphone in front of us 12 hours a day…The guy’s going to snap one time.”
That led to a new segment on Toucher & Rich titled “Stephen A. Smith is horny” with music by R&B artist Barry White playing in the background. Throughout the nearly 20-minute aside, the show played clips from Smith’s Cadence 13-produced podcast recently renamed The Stephen A. Smith Show, and spoke about how he is now giving dating advice to close out episodes of his show.
“My man can’t help getting horny on it every single episode,” Jon Wallach said. “He is trapped with a microphone in front of him 18 hours a day – he really is. He’s on TV and the radio and podcast. It doesn’t stop.”
Because of Smith’s busy schedule across ESPN programming – including First Take, NBA Countdown, NBA in Stephen A’s World and guest appearances on shows such as SportsCenter and Get Up – he seems to be over the airwaves more often than not. On top of that, he hosts new episodes of his podcast at least three times a week. He has said the network did research that found he had reached 1.7 billion people on ESPN’s YouTube page last year, and that the number is expected to hit 2.4 billion at the end of this year.
The Boston morning show surmised that since Smith hardly has moments away from his profession, he cannot help but to talk about topics such as dating advice to vary the content.
“He just loves to drop into that sexy – ‘We’re going to do dating advice because everyone’s reaching out for dating advice from Stephen A. Smith,” Toucher said.
Evan Roberts thinks he has heard the future of WFAN. The co-host of Carton & Roberts said Tuesday afternoon that an overnight audition he heard on the station is going to yield big results.
Roberts said he could not sleep on Monday night, so he turned on the station to hear a new voice on the air and he was impressed.
“Alvin was on the air from midnight to two, and I’m going to make your prediction. He will be full-time here in the next three years,” he said. “Very good. He was tremendous.”
The Alvin in question is Alvin Cintron. He is a listener that Carton & Roberts explained would make videos and send them to program director Spike Eskin with a note asking when he would get his shot on WFAN.
“I listened to about 45 minutes of it,” Roberts said. “First radio show ever! I think the story is Spike literally found the guy on social media and said, ‘You know what? I’ll give you a shot.’”
Cintron posted a video on Facebook of himself listening to the segment. He called it “surreal.”
Craig Carton joked that if Evan Roberts thinks Alvin Cintron is going to be part of WFAN’s full-time staff in the next three years, that means he has someone on the staff getting fired and that Alvin is going to jump ahead of the current WFAN part-timers working towards the same goal.
“I didn’t put anybody down,” Roberts answered. “All I said was I thought he was brilliant last night, and I’m making a prediction. I think within the next three years, he’s full time.”
VSiN is going to New England. Content from the sports betting network will be heard on Binnie Media’s 106.3-HD2 in Nashua. The station will be branded VSiN Radio 106.3-FM HD-2.
“We’re thrilled to team up with Binnie Media to deliver the real-time news and insights New Englanders need to inform their wagering decisions,” Brian Musburger, founder and CEO of VSiN, said in a press release. “New Hampshire was one of the first states to embrace legal sports betting and, with Massachusetts recently legalizing, there has never been more interest in the informative and educational sports betting programming VSiN delivers every day. We are excited to bring our team of betting experts to Binnie Media’s passionate sports audience, especially in Massachusetts, the home state of VSiN’s parent company, DraftKings.”
In addition to the long-form content on 106.3-HD2, VSiN will also have a presence on other Binnie Media stations. Brent Musburger’s Action Updates will be heard on eight other stations in the group. They will run twice a day, giving the network a multi-format presence across the state.
Binnie Media is the largest privately owned and locally managed media company in Maine and New Hampshire. It owns fifteen radio stations as well as digital and outdoor marketing brands.
“Sports betting is quickly becoming part of the daily conversation. As we evaluated the options in this space, we landed on VSiN,” added Heath Cole, VP of Programming at Binnie Media. “Their programming is best-in-class and the support from the VSiN team goes well beyond the content we air on the station. From the short-form Action Updates to the digital content the VSiN team creates for our listeners, we think this content is, by far, the best in the space. We’re very excited about the opportunity to bring this programming to our listeners.”
