SIGNAL CALLER
Mayfield Mania is still dialing up interest in Oklahoma
Akron, Ohio. Erie, Pennsylvania. Wheeling, West Virginia. And Norman, Oklahoma. One of these things is not like the other— unless you’re talking about cities with radio affiliates for the Cleveland Browns.
Yep, Norman is now listed alongside Celina and Fostoria, Dover and Geneva— Ohio hamlets all— because of Baker Mayfield and some out-ofthe-box thinking by longtime radio man Randy Laffoon.
“Once it became reality that Baker would start ...,” the owner of KREF said, “we thought it was about time to become an affiliate of the Browns.”
Mayfield Mania, y’all. In recent weeks, the NFL has become acutely aware of the Baker Buzz. The rookie quarterback is big in Cleveland, of course, after leading the Browns to two wins for the first time in, well, forever. Fans at the Indians game earlier this week broke into chants of “Bake-r May-field!” after the baseball went south.
But he is also leading coverage for lots of nationalmedia, both print and broadcast— and those folks generally write and talk about what the biggest number of people are interested in.
And people are interested in Mayfield.
Laffoon witnessed that passion for the past three years, and in June when the Browns made Mayfield the overall No. 1 pick in the NFL
Draft, Laffoon floated the idea to his team at KREF. The station should consider becoming a Browns affiliate.
There was even precedent; KREF was an affiliate of the St. Louis Rams for a few years after they made Oklahoma native and beloved Sooner signal caller Sam Bradford the first pick in the draft back in 2010.
Still, everyone on the KREF staff wasn’t so sure about Baker and the Browns.
“Really?” Perry Spencer, the station’s director of marketing, remembers asking Laffoon. “The Browns?”
Laffoon: “You don’t think so?”
Spencer: “I don’t know. I can’t see it being that great. I mean, they’re terrible.”
He wasn’t wrong about that. The Browns had the top pick in the draft for a reason. Winless a year ago, some wondered before this season if
Cleveland might make it a double this year. Back-toback goose eggs seemed totally possible.
Add the fact that Cleveland coach Hue Jackson said before the season he intended to play Tyrod Taylor and give Mayfield a year to learn the system, and Laffoon decided to shelve the idea of becoming an affiliate.
No Baker?
No Browns.
But then three Thursdays ago, Taylor suffered a concussion in the first half against the Jets. Mayfield took over, led the Browns back from a two-touchdown deficit, won his first career gameand set the sports world on fire.
The following Monday, he was officially named the Browns starter.
“So,” Laffoon asked Spencer, “what do you think now?”
Spencer knew exactly what his boss was talking about— it was time to contact the Browns.
Laffoon and Spencer knew the franchise might not want to adda radio affiliate after the season started. It might be too much hassle. It might be
too little return.
But the Browns loved the idea of having an affiliate in the market where Mayfield’s star really rose.
And when they realized KREF already had the equipment needed tocapture their signal, it only took a few keystrokes to get things up and running.
Friday, KREF announced it had become an affiliate.
Sunday, it broadcast its first Browns game, complete with 30 minutes of
pregame and the complete postgame show.
The game against the Ravens justhappened to be a dramatic overtime victoryfor the Browns— andMayfield’s first win as the starter to boot.
Laffoon heard from lots of folks since.
“How’d you get the Browns?” they ask.
They think it’s cool that the Browns’ games are being broadcast out of Norman, 1400 on the AM dial and 99.3 on the FM
side. They still can’t get enough of Mayfield.
“The popularity of Baker Mayfield, I’ve been an OU sports fan for 40 years, and I haven’t seen anything like it,” Laffoon said.
He knows that winning was a big part of Mayfield’s appeal — the quarterback was33-6 as the Sooner starter, leading to three Big 12 titles, two playoff appearances and one Heisman Trophy— but Laffoon believes the connection between Sooner Nation and Mayfield goes beyond that.
Mayfield has a great backstory, for starters. He transferred to OU even though Trevor Knight was coming off his best game as a Sooner. There was no guarantee that Mayfield would play, much less start. But he wanted to be a Sooner so badly that he left Texas Tech with no assurances.
What’s more, he grew up in Austin, in theland of all things burnt orange, wanting nothing more than to wear the crimson.
As beloved as Bradford and even Jason White were, they wanted to
be Sooners in large part because that’s what they grew up seeing.
Mayfield wanted that even though he grew up seeing Longhorns.
And Mayfield never tried to hide the fact that he wanted to win. Badly. Desperately. With every fiber in his being. Fans can relate. “They want to win,” Laffoon said, “and you feel that from Baker Mayfield, too.”
The bond between Baker and Boomers remains strong even though he’s gone to the Browns.
It’s strong enough to convince a radio station more than a thousand miles from Cleveland to carry the games, to be an affiliate that seems more like a mistake.
“We stick out for sure,” Spencer said with a chuckle.
They’d have it no other way. Jenni Carlson: Jenni can be reached at 405-475-4125 or jcarlson@oklahoman.com. Like her at facebook.com/JenniCarlsonOK, follow her at twitter.com/ jennicarlson_ok or view her personality page at newsok.com/ jennicarlson.