Would Sox pull out of Entercom deal?

[raccoonradio]

K. Vahey said on boston-radio-interest that acc to a Sox official the team is demanding 2010 radio rights in full by 3/1...no extensions, backup plan in place for RSox. If Entercom can't come up with the money, dare we wonder if CBS may swoop in?
"Sox in FM Stereo on 98.5 The Sports Hub"... who knows.

 

[DToTheJ]

Certainly would be a boon for 98.5 if CBS can manage to get the Sox package. And we shouldn't count out ESPN Radio's Boston affiliate... ummmm, what is it again? But CBS can find a way to make it happen, if Entercom can't hold up their end of the deal.

 

[MCarney]

Perhaps the fallback position is to buy time on an FM (not necessarily 98.5) and keep the advertising revenue for themselves, with spots sales being handled by the NESN sales staff. The Sox know realistically what they can expect in terms of revenue. But I'm going to guess they have the revenue from the radio contract in the budget and would rather be paid.

 

[Deleted User]

The Red Sox Radio Network can be anything the Sox put together themselves, say WPLM FM to the south as a start, remembering WPLM has already been the Red Sox flagship, WBOQ gets them decent coverage on the North Shore where WPLM doesn't reach, toss in the AM's up in NH, and a Worcester affiliate and you have pretty good coverage.

Would or could WPLM preempt the Queen of Sap ( Delilah) at night to run ball games during the week?

They would probably not want to screw around with Ron Della Chiesa on the weekend nights.. good question.
I guess it depends on how many night games there are on the weekends.

Look at WXRV's signal on 92.5, add that to PLM, BOQ, CRN and you have coverage from Worcester to Boston to the cape to the south and most of Southern NH,

 

[raccoonradio]

Technically the ESPN affiliate is WEEI at this point (nights, weekends)

Several teams now have an FM affiliate as their flagship--a fairly powerful one at that. Pirates, Cardinals,
and so on...as I've mentioned before where I work AM can be a tough get (and no I can't use a computer)
and the nearby WMKK would have been fine. WBZ-FM does come in (so does WBOQ, a Sox affiliate, but not too strong on the workroom floor...)

>>and keep the advertising revenue for themselves

for a while Greater Media was in the running and it was thought the Sox would land on 92.9, and perhaps the team would buy part or all of the station...

 

[Dighton Rockhead]

The Red Sox Radio Network can be anything the Sox put together themselves, say WPLM FM to the south as a start, remembering WPLM has already been the Red Sox flagship, WBOQ gets them decent coverage on the North Shore where WPLM doesn't reach, toss in the AM's up in NH, and a Worcester affiliate and you have pretty good coverage.

Would or could WPLM preempt the Queen of Sap ( Delilah) at night to run ball games during the week?

They would probably not want to screw around with Ron Della Chiesa on the weekend nights.. good question.
I guess it depends on how many night games there are on the weekends.

Look at WXRV's signal on 92.5, add that to PLM, BOQ, CRN and you have coverage from Worcester to Boston to the cape to the south and most of Southern NH,

 

[Deleted User]

The Red Sox Radio Network can be anything the Sox put together themselves, say WPLM FM to the south as a start, remembering WPLM has already been the Red Sox flagship, WBOQ gets them decent coverage on the North Shore where WPLM doesn't reach, toss in the AM's up in NH, and a Worcester affiliate and you have pretty good coverage.

Would or could WPLM preempt the Queen of Sap ( Delilah) at night to run ball games during the week?

They would probably not want to screw around with Ron Della Chiesa on the weekend nights.. good question.
I guess it depends on how many night games there are on the weekends.

Look at WXRV's signal on 92.5, add that to PLM, BOQ, CRN and you have coverage from Worcester to Boston to the cape to the south and most of Southern NH,

Dighton your comment didn't post....

 

[Dighton Rockhead]

WPLM FM to the south as a start, WBOQ gets them decent coverage on the North Shore where WPLM doesn't reach, toss in the AM's up in NH, and a Worcester affiliate and you have pretty good coverage.Look at WXRV's signal on 92.5, add that to PLM, BOQ, CRN and you have coverage from Worcester to Boston to the cape to the south and most of Southern NH,

Since Entercom owns WEEI-FM 103.7....this little plan leaves those of us on the South Coast out in the cold. I've become spoiled by the city-grade FM coverage on 103.7, and I don't want to be forced to choose between the "OK" but not city-grade 99.1, or trying to pull in 1480-WSAR.

 

[Deleted User]

the WPLM scenerio doesn't mean that a south coast am or fm couldn't be brought into the plan either. There might be some overlap of the distant signal prediction, but it would not take much in my opinion to get a bunch of smaller stations to patch together a network with good coverage. I think that as long as the local signal was protected, or an agreement not to poach advertisers from each other by way of station X agreeing only to solicit clients in city 1,2, and 3 while station B sticks with towns 9, 10 and 11, things might work out, anti trust concerns not withstanding.

I would think that almost any station would jump at the chance to be affiliated with th sox right now even more so if it were on a barter basis.

If they didn't have to lay out any cash, and got to keep a few minutes an hour for themselves that they could package with run of the station packages that included the games how could it not be a win for a small station?

 

[aaronread]

Why would the Sox be so determined to end their deal with Entercom? Maybe I missed something but I don't see there being a chance in hell that any other station in the market will be crazy enough to sign a deal as sweet (for the Sox) that WEEI did. I don't think any other station could possibly afford it in this economic climate. Even WBZ-FM probably couldn't make it profitable.

Plus wouldn't WBZ have some noticeable schedule overlap problems if they were airing Bruins, Celtics AND the Sox?

Granted if Entercom pleads poverty and says "it's either take a X% cut or we walk" then I suppose the Sox could find another station willing to pay more than whatever's Entercom's offering. That's another story.

 

[thirdendorsed]

There was talk last year that the Hose had an out because a rights fee payment was not made on time.

There will never again be a Red Sox Radio Network without a major Boston station as the flagship, unless ownership is completely ignorant about the Mariner-WITS/WWEL and Campbell disasters of the late 70s and early 80's, so all the babble from pretend programmers about cobbling together makeshift networks is just so much silly chatter.

 

[Deleted User]

There will never again be a Red Sox Radio Network without a major Boston station as the flagship, unless ownership is completely ignorant about the Mariner-WITS/WWEL and Campbell disasters of the late 70s and early 80's, so all the babble from pretend programmers about cobbling together makeshift networks is just so much silly chatter.

I'm not suggesting it is an ideal situation, if anything it is a worst case scenario.

If Entercom breaks the contract, the choices are re-negotiate with WEEI, approach CBS, put out a request for proposals, or do it themselves. With exhibition games right around the corner I don't think the Sox are in a position to jump ship. If Entercom went to court and got an injunction if things got nasty, the Sox could find themselves off the radio airwaves.

 

[DToTheJ]

...we shouldn't count out ESPN Radio's Boston affiliate... ummmm, what is it again?

Technically the ESPN affiliate is WEEI at this point (nights, weekends)...

I'm sure that will change at some point. ESPN is in the process of releasing itself from its weekend-demotion stronghold in Minneapolis... but I guess that's another topic for another thread...

 

[raccoonradio]

>>schedule overlap problems if they were airing Bruins, Celtics AND the Sox?

You mean Bruins, Patriots, AND the Sox. The C's are on WEEI. Should WBZ-FM get the rights,
one team would be pushed to WBZ (AM) for overlaps. If for some reason all 3 are playing,
WODS could be used, which happened a few times when WBZ had the B's rights but
needed to do election coverage on the AM; the puck moved to 103.3 that night

 

[blackgold]

Hello! What's this I see? Before long, you'll probably get WBMX at 104.1 and WZLX at 100.7 into the simulcast/alternate broadcast act!

 

[Wbzfm2010]

well ive been listening to the sports hub as of late and they keep saying the home of the Redsox then a 5sec pause and then they say fan so maybe behind the scenes there going after the Redsox i've heard it more since the report of a upfront payment due next week hmmmm

 

[jlehmann]

well ive been listening to the sports hub as of late and they keep saying the home of the Redsox then a 5sec pause and then they say fan so maybe behind the scenes there going after the Redsox i've heard it more since the report of a upfront payment due next week hmmmm

WEEI had use a liner very similar to that for the Patriots a few years ago, so they're probably just copying that.