This past March when Kevin “Whitey” Gleason and Mark Kreidler, along with their partner, Dan Dibley – collectively known in sports-talk radio as the Rise Guys – were let go by KGMZ 95.7 FM The Game in San Francisco, they were stunned.
The two were briefly on the street wondering what happened, but, according to sacbee.com, all that changed two weeks ago when KCTC 1320 AM ESPN in Sacramento announced it had hired Gleason and Kreidler – for an afternoon show still called “The Rise Guys,” which debuts Monday in the 2-6 p.m. slot. The pair now work for the same company, Entercom, that fired them in the spring.
It was almost three years ago exactly that Gleason and Kreidler bolted from their comfy, successful morning perch at KHTK 1140 AM in Sacramento for the greener pasture of the San Francisco gig, where they dove headfirst into Bay Area sports mania.
“We had an incredible opportunity to go to a larger market in San Francisco, which was a good career move,” Gleason said recently, sitting in a conference room at his new station’s Old Foothill Farms studios.
The Game, using the Rise Guys, aimed to take a bigger slice of the morning-sports-talk-market pie from KNBR 680 AM, which dominates the San Francisco market. It did not.
The Bay Area Sports Guy industry newsletter reported that in February, when the Rise Guys were still at The Game, their Nielsen “reach” – or estimated number of people hearing the program – was 206,900, compared to KNBR’s 504,900. In March, The Game’s reach was 217,900, compared to KNBR’s 605,900.
Gleason is a radio veteran whose Rise Guys show had aired on KHTK for 12 years. He has more than 30 years in radio, moving into sports talk in 1999. He said going to KMGZ “did not work out ideally” but “I would do it again in a heartbeat. I think our show for having been in San Francisco is a better show than it was.”
Their return to Sacramento does place them opposite former colleague Grant Napear at their old radio home, KHTK. Napear, the television voice of the Sacramento Kings, has long hosted his own weekday afternoon sports talk show from 3-7 p.m. Napear said he was unconcerned by the re-emergence of the Rise Guys on his turf.
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