Connect with us
Jim Cutler Demos

Sports Radio News

Countdown to Coverage: College Football’s Best National Sports Radio Show

“If you can keep fanbases of multiple teams playing for wildly different stakes engaged with the same conversation, you are doing something right.”

Published

on

College football season is nearly here.

Forget last Saturday. It’s called Week 0 for a reason. Do you really want to believe the first game of the 2022 season was 3-9 Northwestern and 3-9 Nebraska playing halfway around the world?

Here at Barrett Sports Media, we are celebrating college football from a media angle. All week long, our editors and resident college football superfans, Arky Shea, Demetri Ravanos and Garrett Searight, will be looking at the best the media has to offer in terms of college football coverage.

The entire schedule is as follows:

MONDAY: Best Local Show

TUESDAY: Best National Radio Show

WEDNESDAY: Best College Football Podcast

THURSDAY: Best TV Show

FRIDAY: Best TV Play-by-Play Booth

The national college football conversation is all about the headliners. Who has the most unique way of saying “Alabama is good”? Who can deliver a take so well-thought-out and nuanced that you walk away convinced that Kirby Smart just may be on the hot seat?

College football, like Star Wars, happens across vast geography with storylines that are only loosely connected. If you can keep fanbases of multiple teams playing for wildly different stakes engaged with the same conversation, you are doing something right.

Here are our choices for the best nationally syndicated sports radio shows covering college football.

THE PAUL FINEBAUM SHOW by Arky Shea

You are allowed to say whatever you want about The Paul Finebaum Show but unless it’s a compliment, it’s going to fall on deaf ears with me. Finebaum is who introduced me to sports talk radio over twenty years ago and I absolutely see how he is still a powerhouse today. No one is more for the fans of college football than Paul Finebaum and his show. No one talks to more fans of college football than Paul Finebaum. The rapid pulse of the sport is measured in sound bytes recorded on his airwaves.

Finebaum has long been a very good interviewer that asks the most important questions a wandering mind might fancy. He’s also a very funny, self-deprecating host. His flare is for taking the listeners on a ride with the callers being the driver. He allows for the caller, the college football fan, to scream all of their most passionate battle cries without judgment while maneuvering them alongside callers of their rivals, all in attempt to show that this sport, college football, is NOTHING without its fans. It’s genius radio and a doorway for those unaware of the constant hustle, that is daily, to be a fan of a team in the South.

THE DA SHOW by Garrett Searight

In a radio world hyper-polarized by roughly 4 teams per league — outside of the NFL — The DA Show bucks all the trends. Damon Amendolara doesn’t subscribe to the theory that you should only talk about the Lakers, Warriors, Nets, and Celtics, just like he doesn’t believe college football talk should only be about Alabama, Ohio State, Clemson, and USC.

Many will say you shouldn’t have an interview with Wake Forest’s Dave Clawson or Tennessee’s Josh Huepel. “Nobody is talking about them. They’re not relevant nationally,” is the argument frequently given. Well, they’re not relevant nationally because nobody is talking about them. So DA talks about college football as a whole, not just the power players, and interviews more coaches than anyone. If you’re a college football fan, not just a fan of a team or a conference, The DA Show is a must-listen during the football season.

THE HERD by Demetri Ravanos

Colin Cowherd talks to big names and he asks unique questions. What more do you want from a national sports radio show when it covers college football? He gives opinions that are interesting, maybe not always right, but interesting. Isn’t that valuable in a sport where being right has meant picking Alabama, Ohio State, Georgia or Clemson every week of every year?

Colin may not talk about everything in the world of college football, but it is so clear that he likes the sport a lot. And I really like that in a time when everyone is bemoaning so much change, he is asking people to justify and explain their bitching. He is the one national voice that genuinely likes college football that isn’t constantly telling me that the sport is about to go down the toilet.

Sign up for the BSM 8@8

The Top 8 Sports Media Stories of the Day, sent directly to your inbox, every morning at 8am ET.

Invalid email address
We promise not to spam you. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Sports Radio News

Jason Puckett Launches PuckSports.com

“I am super motivated right now and I can’t wait. I have probably been busier now than I’ve ever been in the last 48 hours.”

Published

on

Logo for PuckSports.com

Jason Puckett, who decided to walk away from a contract offer from iHeartMedia’s KJR in Seattle after finding out his partner Jim Moore had been laid off, has launched a new venture – PuckSports.com. ‘Puck’ has a baseball opening day show posted on the Puck Sports YouTube page and also posted an introductory message about his new venture and what led to creating it.

“I wanted to talk to you guys, the listeners out there, the viewers out there, sorry for all of this,” an emotional Puckett said. “Sorry for what has happened and what has taken place. Thank you for all of the comments and the well-wishes and what you have said about myself and Jim.

“It has been a whirlwind of a last few days, for sure and I do want to say that I feel for the people that we used to work with. “I know it’s not easy to go through that, I have been on that side of it many, many times in this industry when someone is let go and you have to sit there and answer all the questions about them and for them…It’s unfortunate and it shouldn’t be that way, but the reality of this business is it’s like that.”

Puckett then told his fans that PuckSports.com and YouTube are where you will be finding his content along with Moore. “I am going to take what I have learned over the years and apply it to a new age of media,” he said and noted this was a direction he had been thinking about for a while.

As for what took place that led to his decision to not sign his contract and talk away, he said, “I just want to take you briefly back to last week. I don’t want to get too much in the weeds, I’m not here to lay any blame or point any fingers at anybody…there’s too many good people that I have worked with that I don’t want to drag into this. It was a process that was at times handled fine, handled perfectly, and at other times it got to a point where it just went on too long. But that’s corporate media and that’s what happens.”

Continuing on Puckett said, “…I had been without a contract since about January…when I was away from the station that was something that we and the station agreed upon…to see if we could get something done and we were all hopeful that we would…I was only supposed to be gone a couple of days…unfortunately as these things sometimes happen, it just went a little bit longer…We received the deal and it was what we wanted, but unfortunately with that news a few hours later came the news from corporate that Jim had lost his job. Obviously there was a mix of emotions with that from me.

“I wrestled with that and the decision and what I would do. It was hard for me to move forward…I couldn’t fight the perception more than anything that I had received a new deal while at the same time, my partner and good friend, guy I love to death, who I grew up reading…it was a hard reality…The loyalty I have, I couldn’t live with myself even though Jim knew what the truth was.”

Puckett said he was aware Moore was planning to step away from the radio show at the end of the year and was looking forward to the nine months they would have left to work with one another. Then, when iHeartMedia made the decision to make Moore a casualty of their latest round of layoffs, Puckett knew he needed to revisit the idea of starting his own venture.

He said, “It has kind of changed my timeline as far as what I wanted to do and where I felt I was at…I am super motivated right now and I can’t wait. I have probably been busier now than I’ve ever been in the last 48 hours.”

Puckett said several of the show’s regular guests would stay with the show and he thanked several sponsors who he said would remain supporters of the show with the new venture. ‘Puck’ noted that starting next week, “…We get underway in full force…I’m going to continue to try and make people laugh and entertain you and talk about sports…and all of the other things you have become accustomed to with this show.”

As he started to wrap up, Puckett said, “I’m jumping into the deep end of the pool and I am going to see if I can swim or sink.”

Sign up for the BSM 8@8

The Top 8 Sports Media Stories of the Day, sent directly to your inbox, every morning at 8am ET.

Invalid email address
We promise not to spam you. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Continue Reading

Sports Radio News

Kirk Minihane: WEEI is “Going to be Andy Gresh and Rich Shertenlieb in Afternoons”

“It’s going to be Andy Gresh and Rich Shertenlieb in the afternoons, which is going to be so awful.”

Published

on

Photos of Kirk Minihane and Rich Shertenlieb

As the speculation continues on where Boston sports talker Rich Shertenlieb will end up, one former WEEI host said he has the scoop on what is going to happen. Kirk Minihane, now with Barstool Sports, said, “What I heard was, initially, was they were moving Rich Keefe from nights to middays, moving Adam Jones from afternoons to middays and keeping Fauria there, and moving Andy Gresh to afternoons…But now it appears Rich Shertenlieb is going to do afternoons with Andy Gresh.”

On Wednesday, Boston Globe sports and sports media columnist Chad Finn put out a post on X, saying, “Didn’t think Rich Shertenlieb would end up at WEEI after leaving Sports Hub. I do now, most likely in afternoon drive. Audacy management has been telling people to expect changes.”

Minihane continued commenting on the matter, saying, “It’s going to be Andy Gresh and Rich Shertenlieb in the afternoons, which is going to be so awful. Maybe the two most sensitive c***s in the history of radio. That’s a show we are going to ruin…we haven’t done that in a while, we are going to take that show down…Once that show starts, we are just going to blitz them with phone calls because Gresh can’t handle that.

“What they don’t understand, because they are so dumb, is that…Rich Shertenlieb has no fan base…no fan of [Toucher and Hardy] in the morning is going to be like ‘I’m not going to listen to Felger in the afternoons, I’ll now listen to Andy Gresh and Rich Shertenlieb.’ It’s going to be dreadful.”

Recapping what he has heard the rest of the WEEI lineup will be, Minihane said, “…And then in middays you have Adam Jones, failed afternoons. Rich Keefe who has now failed middays, drivetime, nights and is now going to fail again in middays… and Christian Fauria who has never drawn a rating in his life.”

WEEI has not commented on any of the speculation. BSM will have more as the story unfolds.

Sign up for the BSM 8@8

The Top 8 Sports Media Stories of the Day, sent directly to your inbox, every morning at 8am ET.

Invalid email address
We promise not to spam you. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Continue Reading

Sports Radio News

Former 670 The Score Host Tommy Williams Has Died

Published

on

Photo of Tommy Williams
Courtesy: Lakeshore Public Media

Tommy Williams, who was heard for a decade on 670 The Score, died on Wednesday at the age of 66.

Williams began his broadcasting career in his hometown of Gary, Indiana in 1982 at WLTH before moving on to The Score. In 2003, Williams became the PA Announcer for the Gary Southshore RailCats of the American Association where he had his signature call to get the attention of the fans, “People, People, People.”

A story in The Times of Northwest Indiana said, “The longtime RailCats public address announcer and Lakeshore Public Media sports journalist was known for broadcasting countless games, interviewing countless athletes and covering Region sports at all levels. The Gary native and co-host of “Prep Sports Report,” “Prep Football Report,” and “Lakeshore PBS Scoreboard” often signed off shows saying, “Gary, Indiana, you know I love you.”

“The cadence he had in his voice echoed across the Region in a way we may never see again. He was widely known and widely loved,” Tom Maloney, vice president of radio operations at Lakeshore Public Media told the paper.

“He’d want to be remembered as the voice of Lakeshore sports,” his Regionally Speaking co-host and producer Dee Dotson told The Times. “Most people will remember him for covering prep sports all the way up to semi-pros. He’ll be remembered for treating each of his subjects like they were world champions. His depth of knowledge of sports at all levels is commendable. He was a walking encyclopedia of stats.” 

Sign up for the BSM 8@8

The Top 8 Sports Media Stories of the Day, sent directly to your inbox, every morning at 8am ET.

Invalid email address
We promise not to spam you. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Continue Reading
Advertisement

Advertisement

Upcoming Events

Barrett Media Writers

Copyright © 2024 Barrett Media.