FM Sports Prediction

[EricStein]

Rome and Patrick are married to XTRA 910 due to their CC-owned syndication. KDUS is doing better now, but they still need someone to replace Bruce Jacobs in early afternoons (Gambo & Ash, once their contracts with KTAR expire?).

But they do need to be on a full-signal FM, not just a couple of HD2 feeds that nobody can hear anyway. Trouble is, what Gumpdusky FM is doing badly enough to blow up?

It's not Sandusky or a South Mountain stick, but there's a frequency that's going to be owned by a couple men with first hand experience in sports soon (one a Hall of Fame NBA legend, the other co-owning an NHL franchise). "103.9 - Sports talk with Pratt in the morning." The engineers can turn off the stereo pilot (is it really needed for a spoken-word format?), and it becomes a full-market signal.

 

[buster2]

Sports at 103.9 is not a bad idea.

This brings up the question of loyalty to KTAR 620 for play-by-play.

Since AM is dying anyway, how long does the mighty 620 (yeah, doesn't rhyme; sorry) make sense for P x P? For years, KTAR was the go-to station because it has the best nighttime AM signal and as NewsRadio 620, it was the 'establishment' station. Colangelo would not put the Suns anywhere else.

But Jerry's not in the game anymore. If I was Robert Sarver, Ken Kendrick or Mike Bidwill, I would think long and hard about KTAR. I would be tired of getting my games moved around at certain times of the year (less true for the Cards, I suppose) and MORE IMPORTANTLY I might want my games on FM where someone under the age of 87 is listening. Unless Bonneville flips the Peak to sports (doubtful) or buys another FM (plausible but unlikely), they can't accommodate P x P on FM on a regular basis.

 

[KeithE4]

But Jerry's not in the game anymore. If I was Robert Sarver, Ken Kendrick or Mike Bidwill, I would think long and hard about KTAR. I would be tired of getting my games moved around at certain times of the year (less true for the Cards, I suppose) and MORE IMPORTANTLY I might want my games on FM where someone under the age of 87 is listening. Unless Bonneville flips the Peak to sports (doubtful) or buys another FM (plausible but unlikely), they can't accommodate P x P on FM on a regular basis.

The Cards' official flagship is KTAR-FM, not AM. The games are only on 620 when there is no D'backs, Suns, or ASU conflict.

Money talks, the owners want a lot of it for rights fees, and TMISU (and Fox on the TV side) have boatloads of it. They can certainly afford to buy the rights to every team they want - and they did (which is why the Coyotes are elsewhere). They own so many rights that they still have to farm out some ASU games to KMVP, or even KDUS on occasion.

 

[Wildstyle K]

That would be horrible if they take away The Peak for this. But if they do, then Hot 97.5 will have a hole they could tweak towards to fill in if their pure modern top 40 hits playlist never fully takes off.