From Michael Casagrand at ledger-enquirer.comRead More.
As the director of broadcasting for the Crimson Tide Sports Network, Tom Roberts knows all angles of the transforming business that is sports radio. On the air, he is a host. In the office, he hammers out contracts with local stations who carry the broadcasts.
Lou Saban, Tom Roberts
Without the local affiliates, there is no network. In all, there are 60-plus stations in five states who hear Eli Gold call the action on fall Saturdays.
But what about all the competition? The SEC didn’t have multibillion-dollar television deals when Roberts started as a statistician with the radio network in 1979, and the Internet was science fiction.
Still, the old-fashioned airwaves have their place in the modern world.
“You would think that it’s probably lost some popularity because all of our games are on TV, but we don’t get that impression, and the station interest and advertiser interest both say there’s still a significant number of people who listen to the games,” Roberts said. “It’s becoming more and more difficult. We have substantial number of people who tell us they turn down the sound on the television and turn up the radio.”
Revenues from the television and radio contracts negotiated by the school totaled $8.4 million in 2010 -- up from $7.3 million in 2009, according to the budget summaries UA filed with the NCAA.
Local affiliates aren’t complaining either.
“It’s as solid as it’s probably ever been,” said John Rodriguez, the market manager for the Montgomery affiliate, WXFX-FM of Cumulus Media, Inc. “Alabama and Auburn have been fortunate over the past few years to get coverage on television, but people who are fans normally want to hear it from a somewhat partisan announcer’s point of view, which means they want Eli Gold giving them the play-by-play as opposed to somebody on ABC or CBS or whoever.”
The Crimson Tide Radio Network is a partnership between Missouri-based Learfield Sports and North Carolina-based IMG College.
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