Sports Radio As Discount Group Therapy

It was like the old days this week. Something was happening in the news and radio was right up there in the rankings as a go-to place to get a feel for what was really happening. But it wasn't Hillary's emails and it wasn't Ferguson and it wasn't anything else in what used to be called the A-section of what used to be newspapers. No, it was all about the Sports section, and it was a pretty good reminder that spoken word local broadcast radio still has a role in the media landscape.

I'm speaking, of course, about this week's insane NFL free agency sweepstakes. I will submit, of course, that I had a vested interest in the shenanigans, being a Philadelphia Eagles fan, so what was going on obviously had special resonance for me. But even when the deals didn't involve Chip Kelly and the Plan That Wasn't (or May Still Be, or Whatever), the rapid-fire action captured the attention of a huge number of people. It was a rollercoaster, a series of "can you believe that?" deals and signings, an avalanche of speculation about the next domino to fall. It was drama, in a Hyper-Reality Show fashion.

And radio was a key part of it all, although there's a caveat along with that. In the past, radio was THE place to go for ALL of the immediate news and ALL of the speculation and information. 15 years ago, you didn't have social media and streaming wasn't what it is now. So you went to your local sports station, if you had one, and waited for the news to roll in. Now, of course, you have other options, and for the immediate news, that's where you went: Twitter, namely, where a signing wasn't a signing until Adam Schefter tweeted that it was a signing, and where the reactions and rumors and "WHAT THE HELL BRADFORD?????" flew fast and furious. And I was all over that stuff, with the tweets rushing by trying to guess what the Eagles and Cowboys and Jets and Bears and Seahawks and Saints were thinking and who would be trading up or down in the draft and who's getting what guaranteed money from whom. Throw in Deadspin for overall snark, Pro Football Talk for more speculation, and countless other websites and it was busy.

But what those sources can't do is what radio CAN do: Listening to local sports radio provided the sound of the fans, the anguish and exhilaration voiced in familiar accents, the exasperation and anger and faith all having an immediate impact that isn't the same as 140 characters of vitriol. Sure, follow the right Twitter accounts and you'll get a lot of that -- I have my favorites, and they did not disappoint. But there's a difference between a single sentence, no matter how artfully worded, and the sound of some fan from Trevose or Addison or Peabody sputtering over what his or her team just did. It was fun to read all the tweets following the DeMarco Murray saga, especially how the fans in Philly and Dallas did 180s on a dime, but hearing Eagles fans calling in to WIP and 97.5 The Fanatic go from being ready to throw Chip Kelly into the Schuylkill to "In Chip We Trust" all over again in the time it took from the Foles-Bradford trade to the Murray rumors to catch fire, or to listen to the callers on The Fan and The Ticket in Dallas turn on their now-former running back with amazingly colorful bursts of anger, was something else indeed. People will rip sports radio as being representative of the worst elements of fandom, the loud, drunk know-nothing crowd, but I think of it as the most entertaining element of the whole illogical sports thing. Certainly, listening to sports stations in all the markets where the local NFL team was wheeling and dealing was compelling (there's that word again) and often hilarious. So what if the speculation was often off base and the callers overwrought over something that, in the long run, shouldn't affect their lives? It was entertaining enough to be an essential part of following the story.

That's what talk radio needs to be, always. I think that's what traditional talk radio has lost over the years as it's become more fossilized, more prone to put an "expert" on to drone away with talking points about whatever's in the news. It's predictable, and there hasn't been a moment while seeing the coverage of Email-gate and Ferguson and whatever else is in the news this week that I've felt I needed to hear what talk radio had to offer about it. This week on sports radio was filled with real people -- hosts and callers and even sportswriters and experts -- reacting to surprise after surprise, and it was worth keeping on even as the stories were breaking on Twitter, too. I felt like I wasn't going to get a feel for the whole story without that being part of it. That should go for every story, in regular talk radio as well as for sports, every single day.

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And if you don't know what to talk about to get those flames going, try All Access News-Talk-Sports' Talk Topics, with hundreds of items and ideas to make your show better. Find it by clicking here. And the Talk Topics Twitter feed at @talktopics has every story individually linked to the appropriate item. Also, this week, it's "10 Questions With..." Neal West, who has plenty to say as he leaves Westwood One's Michael Savage show with thoughts on the role of the producer in making great talk radio.

Follow my personal Twitter account at @pmsimon, my Instagram account (same handle, @pmsimon), find me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/pmsimon, and at some point, I'll be updating pmsimon.com again.

Full Disclosure: I also serve as Director of Programming for Nerdist Industries (a division of Legendary Pictures), which includes the Nerdist Podcast Network, one of your major podcast entities. And an Eagles fan.

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Have a wonderful Friday the 13th. But watch out for guys in old-school hockey masks. That's usually a tipoff that they're up to no good.

Perry Michael Simon
Vice President/Editor, News-Talk-Sports
AllAccess.com
psimon@allaccess.com
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