Unlike Past Imitators, A Real Threat To WEEI

In New York we have WFAN. Others tried to battle with them and failed. Then 1050 ESPN Radio came along and has given WFAN somewhat a run for their money. All things being equal, I'll turn on WFAN. The only exception is that I do really like Mike & Mike. But they don't focus on the New York sports I want to hear and so most of the time, it's "The Fan" for me.

In Boston, where I went to college, there is and has been one leader for a long time: WEEI. In the summer before my Senior year at Brandeis, I was forwarded a job listing that was seeking interns for a new ESPN Radio affiliate in Boston. I was able to score myself an internship for the fall working in their promotions department and I was psyched.

Many viewed 890 ESPN Radio as a competitor for WEEI, but in my time there, I knew it would never be. The station was grossly underfunded. The marketing department, under which I worked, had virtually no money to spend. They had no teams to broadcast and had very, very few original Boston-centric shows. The one original show they did have (I think at the time called "The Drive with Mike Felger"), was good, but nothing earth-shattering in my opinion.

The worst part? Every time I did my promotions at Gillette Stadium, I would tell people to turn on 890 AM and check it out. They did so and would get static. That was embarrassing. The station didn't do as bad as 1510 "The Zone" had before it, but 890 ESPN Radio wasn't doing that well.

Employees complained to me all the time. They all knew they had no chance to compete. Some were worried the General Manager, Jessamy Tang, would run them into the ground before they were even there a year. And they may have been right: according to Boston Sports Media Watch Tang admitted to misuse of a ticket donation intended for a local veteran's charity (I'm not at all surprised). 

When my internship ended in December, I wanted to stay on and help out ad hoc. I was an unpaid, hard-working intern and I enjoyed some of the events. I never heard back from them.

So while doing a little research, I was surprised to stumble upon an article from the Boston Globe which stated that WEEI may finally have a real threat in Boston, but from the FM side of the dial. CBS Radio is taking the WBZ spot on the radio and inserting 98.5 The Sports Hub. They already have a leg up on 890 ESPN Radio: they already have the New England Patriots and Boston Bruins. I don't know if they will be able to compete with the sports-radio powerhouse, but they have a chance.

They have a better piece of real estate in some ways and the corporate muscle of CBS (where ESPN didn't seem to really want to flex at all to prevent 890 from failing). The FM part of the dial is finally get sports-talk radio in many areas of the country including Detroit, Dallas, and Washington. That male 18-25 demographic as well as an older male demographic is right there for the advertisers to fight over. I don't think it will be too long

And guess who is joining 98.5? Mike Felger.

98.5 The Sports Hub may be no more of a threat to 'EEI than any of the past competitors, but at least they have a fighting chance. It'll be interesting to see what happens over the next few years on the radio waves of Beantown.