You've basically nailed it, Fred. The dominant station gets the prime pro broadcasts and dominates the format for the market. Greater Media flipped their AC to Sports on 105.1 and has averaged less than a 1 share even despite having a local afternoon drive time show hosted by a well known, very popular former DJ (the show is sports oriented). While they've gotten the rights to the NBAs Pistons, I don't see this having a great deal of impact.
Three other stations have a Sports format, consisting of Yahoo! Sports (1090), CBS Sports Radio (National Feed, 1270) and Fox Sports Radio (1130).
This is entirely too much, even for a sports crazy town like Detroit. There simply is not enough interest to sustain so much TALKING about sports.
There would be nothing to gain, for anyone, by WPHT flipping to sports. There would be no quality content to provide.
I'm curious, Julius, if they were to flip, which will not happen, what programming do you envision the station carrying?