Wasn't that part of a bunch of tryouts to find a new co-host? I remember Francesa explaining that there would be changes to the show, and he'd find a new person, etc. And then nothing happened at all. I guess it was nice of him to pretend for a couple weeks that he was willing to share his show again. Too bad, it really does need another voice.
Yes, that's exactly what happened. The problem is that most of the co-hosts were either terrible (people overly deferential, etc.), already at the Fan (I thought Beningo was decent, but he's already got the midday), or had other commitments (Jones and Ron Darling, for example). I wonder if Kim likes her gig at YES too much to become Francesa's personal sidekick - as it is, she subs in on the Fan pretty frequently, and she's a re-occurring guest on Francesa during baseball season (not surprising, given the relationship between Francesa and YES).
I've spent a bit of time in NYC radio and the rev numbers--even in NYC--are small. 'FAN has decent billing but with rare exception would they turn down an ad buy.
Was about to post the same thing....he's mentioned it about 5 times in the last two days. And if you challenge him, he'll tell you that the Yankees were the ones to get it right. But mostly he's complaining about the cold...
To be fair to him, the Yanks were the first to say we are going to make a fucking mint off this. The Red Sox had a gold mine and spent most of their 15 year headstart doing fuck all about it.
During that same discussion, he ball-washed Steinbrenner's cold dead corpse with a comment about how Steinbrenner put only $160,000 in cash down to buy the franchise in 1973. Of, course, he said, that while that doesn't sound like much, people have to realize that that amount of money was the equivalent of "millions and millions and millions" today. I knew that was a massive exaggeration, so I went to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' inflation calculator. It turns out that $160,000 in 1973 had the buying power of $785,787 in 2010.
Someone called him towards the end of last week and brought up this exact point to him. His defense was that he didn't think the Sox had committed all their games to NESN before the existence of YES. He wanted someone to check for him. Does anyone actually remember what year they shifted the majority of the games over to NESN? I seem to remember it being before YES was launched in 2002.
The Sox went NESN-only starting with the 2006 season, but really started paring down the over-the-air broadcasts in the late 90s, early 00s. The last couple years, I think the over-the-air telecasts were all on Friday nights and were still simulcast on NESN outside the immediate Boston market. As far as I know, the Yankees still have games broadcast over-the-air on channel 9 (produced by YES though), even this year, so I find it hard to swallow the idea that NESN became the exclusive home of the Sox due to pressure that YES was doing the same thing.
This is correct, but the other thing that changed was the way they got paid by the cable companies. When NESN was a premium service, they got $10 a month or whatever it was from maybe 2-3% of the cable subscribers. When it went basic, they got $1 or $2 from 100% of the subscribers. Consequently, the revenue from the cable systems went way up. Furthermore, because it was now available to all viewers, the ratings increased significantly, which enabled NESN to increase its advertising rates dramatically. The combination caused NESN's revenues to skyrocket, while its costs didn't change at all. The move to basic cable happened in 2001, which was before YES was launched and before the sale of the team to Henry. This switch was a major reason the team commanded such a large price when it sold. Furthermore, NESN was financed entirely by the Red Sox (80%) and the Bruins (20%), while the Yankees under Steinbrenner sold a big chunk of the company to Goldman Sachs and Providence Equity Partners back in the early 2000s, so George and his boys have not enjoyed all the value that YES has built.
Actually, it was during the 2001 season that NESN ceased to be a pay channel. 2002 marked the season where most games were on NESN (THE YEAR TO BE HERE!!!11), with the balance being televised on Fox 25. They didn't want to fully pull the plug on the over the air viewers, leaving Friday Night Baseball, which ran until, what, 2008?
That was me. I had been listening to him say this over and over again for weeks. I am a red sox fan stuck in YES land and I had enough. I kissed his ass in the beginning of the call so he wouldn't hang up right away. He barely let me get at word in edge wise. He also claimed that NESN only showed Sox games twice a week in the 80s. I grew up in Western Mass and my only way to watch Sox games was once a week on TV 38. I was hoping someone was listening to this because he back peddled like crazy and than hung up on me.
Day 2 of all Madoff, all the time.
we are now in day 4! jeesh! he is obsessed with Madoff. it seems like anytime this offseason we have had anything controversial with the Yanks,(lee not signing, pettitte etc) Mike has either been on vacation or in denial. paging maddog
Lots of interesting stuff, Mike let him rant a lot but I thought the most interesting thing was the Smith never outright said 18 games was off the table. The whole exchange was fascinating.
Steve: Don't know if you heard the whole thing, but his argument was pretty simple: He said that when you are the better team, like Louisville was, that you foul there so that the other team has absolutely no chance to hit a three and beat you. So if they make both shots on the line (which is no sure thing) worst case scenario is that you have the ball with 12 seconds left in a tie game. If you make the shot, you win. If you miss it you have overtime, and the odds are in your favor because you are the better team. But there is no chance you give the other team the possibility of ending the game with a 3.
