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Kevin Harlan: Play-by-Play Guy Most Important Thing on Radio, 4th on TV

Jordan Bondurant

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Kevin Harlan is set to make history on Sunday, calling his 13th consecutive Super Bowl.

Harlan, who is the voice of Monday Night Football on Westwood One on the radio and calls NFL games on TV for CBS, said on Bernstein & Holmes on 670 The Score it’s not lost on him what a privilege calling games like the Super Bowl is.

“When I put on that headset wherever I am, it’s a pretty special moment,” Harlan said. “And I never take it lightly and always think of the people that preceded me.”

Since Harlan has experience in both TV and radio, he was asked about the primary differences in calling NFL games. Kevin said the play-by-play voice isn’t the main priority on TV.

“On TV the play-by-play guy is the fourth most important thing on there,” he said. “It’s the picture – what the cameras are shooting – then the analyst, cause he’s gotta tell a lot of people and helps everybody in deciding why a play worked or didn’t. Then the graphics, then the replays and the bells and whistles, and all those fun things we see that they do in the truck. And then the play-by-play guy.”

Harlan meant no offense to his colleagues who have called games on television, but Kevin said he just understands where his position on the broadcast stands on TV versus radio.

“I’m there to accentuate the picture, accentuate the graphics and the statistics they put on the screen, set up the color analyst, give some pockets of space on television – let it breathe and give people a chance to digest what they’ve seen – what they just heard the analyst say,” he said. “Maybe try to digest the statistic or the graphic that’s been thrown up on the screen. They don’t want to overload them.

“On the radio, all you have for the listener is the theater of their imagination and their thoughts and their emotions,” Harlan added. “So the play-by-play guy on the radio is number one. So it’s all about pacing, delivery, word usage, reporting skill, and using the crowd as an orchestra if there’s a big play. But making sure that they’re constantly aware of score and time.”

Harlan has always found radio to be the dream industry to work in. He said there’s nothing quite like a radio broadcast.

“It’s the purest form of broadcasting,” he said. “It’s voice, it’s diction, it’s vocabulary, it’s pacing, it’s delivery, it’s reporting skill, it’s like every touch point that somebody in our business needs. Whereas in TV it’s a whole other set of skills.”

Sports Radio News

Los Angeles Angels: Costs Don’t Justify Sending Radio Crew On Road

“We just found that the economics – 40,000-50,000 miles is not going to change that experience.”

Jordan Bondurant

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The 2023 Los Angeles Angels begin their new season Thursday in Oakland, and almost 400 miles south of RingCentral Coliseum at Angel Stadium of Anaheim. The team’s radio broadcasters will be virtually alone in the broadcast booth calling the game remotely.

Terry Smith and Mark Langston, the Angels’ radio broadcast team, will not travel for road games this season. It marks the fourth year since the COVID-shortened season in 2020 that the team has decided to keep the radio crew grounded.

The Angels and the Toronto Blue Jays are the only two teams that don’t send their main English speaking radio broadcasters to road games. Both in Anaheim and Toronto, the moves are viewed as a cost-cutting measure.

“We just found that the economics – 40,000-50,000 miles is not going to change that experience,” Angels owner Arte Moreno said earlier this month in a press conference earlier this week.

As for the Angels’ Spanish speaking broadcasts, half of the 2023 season will air on KWKW. Rolando Gonzalez will be the play-by-play voice.

Gonzalez replaces longtime Spanish broadcaster Jose Tolentino, who told The Athletic that he was forced out of the role by the team.

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Sports Radio News

Mike Valenti: Mike Tannenbaum’s Mock Drafts Show Why He Got Fired As GM

“I think Tannenbaum’s gotta be drug tested, but I’ll take it.”

Jordan Bondurant

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Former New York Jets general manager Mike Tannenbaum released the third edition of his mock first round of the upcoming NFL draft on Tuesday, and one host at 97.1 The Ticket in Detroit couldn’t stand some of Tannenbaum’s selections.

Mike Valenti asked for some of the surprises that Tannenbaum had in the first round and lost it when Tannenbaum had University of Tennessee quarterback Hendon Hooker coming off the board fifth overall.

“What is this guy on crack? Maybe that’s why Tannenbaum lost his job as a GM,” Valenti said Tuesday on The Valenti Show with Rico. “Hendon Hooker is a system quarterback where Josh Heupel managed to create unnatural matchups by putting receivers out of bounds basically.”

“Automatically I hate this mock draft,” he added.

Georgia defensive tackle Jalen Carter falls to the home town Lions at 18th overall on Tannenbaum’s board, and Valenti doesn’t believe Carter waits that long to be selected. But in this case, with Carter dealing with charges related to a fatal crash in January that killed Georgia teammate Devin Willock and recruiting staffer Chandler LeCroy, Valenti thinks Detroit gets a steal if Carter is still available.

“I think Tannenbaum’s gotta be drug tested, but I’ll take it,” Valenti said.

To be fair, Tannenbaum did write that he was going “a different route” with this year’s mock.

“I’m sliding into the general manager chair for each team with a first-rounder and making my own picks,” Tannenbaum wrote. “This isn’t what I’m expecting but rather how I’d personally approach each Day 1 selection. And what follows is based off my own evaluations, preferences and philosophies.”

The first round of the NFL draft is on Thursday, April 27.

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Sports Radio News

Dan Patrick: NBC Created ‘Something That Was Brilliant’ With Flex Scheduling

“Networks were so upset that NBC would go ‘Hey, you know what? We’re gonna take that game and we’re gonna have it on Sunday night.’ Then FOX and CBS would be scrambling there.”

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Roger Goodell wants flex scheduling to come to Prime Video’s Thursday Night Football package. It could happen this season, but we won’t know for sure until May after league owners decided to table a vote on the proposal. On Wednesday, FOX Sports Radio’s Dan Patrick joined the chorus of critics calling it a bad idea.

Patrick said that the league always prioritizes revenue. If it were thinking about the fans, this isn’t something that would even be discussed.

The idea of flex scheduling was first introduced for NBC’s Sunday Night Football package in 2006. The goal was to make sure the prime time TV package could deliver high quality games every week.

“NBC did something that was brilliant where they were able to flex Sunday night games,” Patrick said. “Everyone wanted it.”

While the fate of flex scheduling for Thursdays remains up in the air, we do know that flex scheduling is coming to Monday Night Football on ESPN this season. Patrick, who worked for NBC when the practice was introduced, said that it always took care of one broadcast partner by screwing others.

“Networks were so upset that NBC would go ‘Hey, you know what? We’re gonna take that game and we’re gonna have it on Sunday night.’ Then FOX and CBS would be scrambling there.”

Dan Patrick suggested that perhaps Amazon’s Prime Video doesn’t deserve the same treatment as NBC or ESPN. Far fewer people watch the Thursday night game than any other primetime NFL contest.

Whether or not flex scheduling comes to Thursday Night Football, Patrick says it does not guarantee to change the package’s reputation for delivering largely unappealing games.

“I’ve long said it’s crazy to say you have to play Sunday and then turn around and play Thursday and we’d always go ‘Man, these Thursday games aren’t good,’” he concluded. “Well, was it the matchup or just the quality of play?”

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