Sports Radio: The Show Must Go On

The Wall Street Journal reports this was supposed to be the busiest time of the sports calendar— and the best time of the year for the people who discuss sports all day, every day. They had survived the post-Super Bowl desert, and now the sports oasis was in sight: March Madness, National Football League free agency, Major League Baseball opening day, the National Basketball Association playoffs and the Masters golf tournament.

“The next three months,” said Brian Murphy, the co-host of the “Murph & Mac” morning show on KNBR 680 AM / 104.5 FM in San Francisco, “are sports-talk fantasy.”

KNBR's Murph & Mac

But the coronavirus pandemic effectively shut down sports over the course of one extraordinary day last week. The NBA, NHL and MLB seasons were suspended. The NCAA tournament was canceled.

Sports helped soothe the nerves of Americans in times of war, financial calamities and global catastrophes. Not this time. “We can’t stick to sports,” said WTLA Syrcause NY host Brent Axe, “because there are no sports.”

Nobody knows what’s happening next. And not even the hot-take artists of sports talk are willing to predict the future. But the coming weeks and months will reveal which hosts are “cave men jabberers,” as Mr. Murphy described the stereotypical characterization of his profession, and which ones have game that extends beyond the locker room.

Many in sports radio believe this is actually their time to shine. “If people listen to sports talk radio,” Ken Carman said on his show on CBS Sports Radio on Saturday, “they’re going to learn how little we talk about games.”

Brent Axe, WTLA

Adam Schein, a host on SiriusXM, spent his first week without sports regaling listeners with the riveting tale of an epic comeback in one game: His son beat his wife in Chutes and Ladders.

He treated the family board game as if it were Game 7 of the World Series. The meltdown began when his wife raced to 99 with a massive lead. And then she got stuck. His son went down a chute, up a ladder, spun a couple sixes and pulled off the improbable win. “I wanted to interview my wife on the loss,” Mr. Schein said. “My wife had no comment on the world’s worst defeat.”

People in sports radio do have one advantage with nothing happening in sports: They’re used to talking about whatever their callers want to talk about. It isn’t unusual for them to solicit ideas from listeners. It’s their job.

“One that we got from a listener we thought was fantastic: We’re going to go home, watch a classic game on You-Tube, come back the next morning and talk about it,” Mr. Murphy said.

Jason Barrett

"The question we’re all trying to answer right now is ‘how do we talk about sports when sports don’t exist?’, according to Jason Barrett of Barrett Sports Media.  "We’re dealing with something that no host, producer, program director or executive has a playbook for. You may have ideas of how to navigate the situation, but you don’t know if it will or won’t work. You’re simply trying to make the best of an impossible situation."

"Some don’t think that sports radio stations should continue broadcasting at this time. I strongly disagree. Are sports radio brands supposed to shut down each time a crisis impacts our country? Are music stations supposed to do the same? Where do we draw the line?

"If this situation spirals out of control, we may have to take that step, but based on the current events, I don’t see any reason why a sports station should stop informing and entertaining listeners. In fact, with no games on TV and people searching for ways to stay entertained and distracted, you can make a case that creating live content is even more necessary."