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Who Will Bring Back ESPN In CLT?

DToTheJ

DToTheJ

AM 730 just dropped ESPN Radio and is going 24/7 VSiN. Right now WFNZ is the only game in town (no pun intended) when it comes to traditional sports talk, and they run Infinity Sports Radio.

But would a dark knight enter the market and return the ESPN Radio brand back to the Queen City?

You may recall last summer when Good Karma Brands took over WCBS 880 in New York, the longtime all-news station ending its format as a result. So who's to say the same thing can't be done here?

Maybe Good Karma can just take over WFNZ outright. There's also a scenario similar to the WCBS deal where they can LMA another station in the market. Maybe iHeart's 96.1 WHQC which has been losing the CHR battle to Kiss. And I know WLNK had a great book and even led in cume in the last book but don't rule that out as a potential suitor. Theoretically, Good Karma can made a deal with Urban One/Radio One/whatever, whereby they can move the Mix format to 92.7 and put ESPN on the much stronger signal. All the local hosts from WFNZ can move down the dial to 107.9, and of course Hornets play-by-play moves there as well. On top of that, Urban One can move the WBT-FM callsign to 107.9 and move the heritage WLNK calls to 99.3.

But I'm just spitballing here. What are your thoughts?
 
Probably no one. ESPN Radio has lost a lot of affiliates. I don’t see Radio One handing over the keys to any of their properties to Good Karma if they were even interested, or moving frequencies or formats. Radio One doesn’t need the cash like these other operators do. iHeart would flip 96.1 before considering selling it.

Tl;dr: nothing changes.
 
Unfortunately ESPN Radio doesn’t have the same star power as it once did after losing Mike & Mike, Cowherd, Patrick, etc. You can’t even identify their flagship show currently. Maybe bringing back Rich Eisen this fall could help. As for 730, they have operated in the shadow of WFNZ so long without making any headway in this market that they decided to change course and try something different. IHeart could jump in but they will more than likely use Fox Sports Radio since they own the network and it has more star power than ESPN these days
 
ESPN Radio has become basically ESPN television’s farm team over the last few years. No decent personalities, all folks who don’t get reps on television so they go to radio instead. 90% of the talk is NBA or NFL most of the year. And only the popular teams.

The play by play isn’t even on every station even though it is about the only thing it has left. The only major markets that still carry ESPN in the Carolinas are Charleston and Raleigh. And 99.9 has the Hurricanes radio rights plus Adam Gold and a local afternoon drive show. While Charleston only a couple years ago had all local shows during the day even though we have no pro sports and the closest major school is 90+ minutes away.

That’s how little faith they had in the network. Kyle Bailey started on there before he went to WFNZ.
 
To me it appears the GKB owned ESPN outlets are the only ones that have worthwhile programming. Even the local hosts are poking fun at the National hosts and their tired narratives, such as "is Giannis leaving the Bucks", LeBron James, and all the wild Stephen A. Smith takes. In Milwaukee they have gone as far as labeling Sham's reports as "Giansense". The local Packers and Brewers reporters are reporting more useful information than all the National insiders combined.
 


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