No lack of Super Bowl coverage or questions to fill the hours
Innes, Payne flap jaws, but who actually heard it?
Questions abound for Super Bowl LII.
Can Rich Eisen make it through NFL Network’s 8½-hour pregame slog without howling “I want this show to be over already!” as he did in the final stages of last year’s marathon?
Can Dan Patrick keep focus atop a manmade snow mountain at Nicollet Mall in downtown Minneapolis long enough to anchor NBC’s pregame show while not being tempted to try the skijoring (dogs pulling people on skis) and tubing courses that NBC will provide for bystanders?
Will Al Michaels at any point in time mention the Eagles-Patriots point spread?
How long will it take Pink to sing the national anthem?
Is it really true that Bill Belichick smiles more these days?
Oh, yes, and football. There will be football. But we’ll get to that later.
Eisen will be back for NFL Network’s pregame show, the most potentially entertaining portion of which looks to be Steve Mariucci and Michael Irvin on an ice-fishing expedition. Patrick will be at the mall set for only two hours, so chances are he can keep focus until he moves to the stadium set for the balance of NBC’s five-hour show.
Michaels was asked this week if the day will come when networks have onscreen graphic point spreads, and he replied, “If you’re going to bet on the game, you know the point spread. Nobody is going to have to show you a graphic as to what the spread is.”
As for the anthem, the over/under is 120 seconds, and five of the past eight have gone over. But the three who didn’t were Christina Aguilera, Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood, so I lean towards the under.
And, yes, it is true, according to NBC’s Rodney Harrison, that it is a jollier Bill Belichick who will lead the Patriots into Sunday’s game against the Eagles.
“Maybe you don’t see it, but when I see him, he smiles a lot more, and he knows how to relate to the players,” Harrison said this week. “I thought he would have a difficult time relating to the players because they’re so different. And when I say different, maybe I mean they’re not as tough as the old-school guys.”
Radio thoughts
I’ve derailed three or four trains of thought trying to decide how to sum up the Wednesday verbal contretemps (I love using big words while discussing trivial silliness) between Seth Payne of KILT (610 AM) and Josh Innes of KBME (790 AM) on Super Bowl Radio Row.
My final version is that Payne vs. Innes had all the significance of a one-fall, 15-minute bout between, say, the Brooklyn Brawler and Barry Horowitz.
They screamed at each other for eight minutes, in a simulcast of sorts on their respective stations, and then went on Boston sports talk station WEEI-FM to say they really sorta liked each other OK.
The confrontation did have consequences for KBME, which was kicked off Radio Row and will wrap up the week with hosts working from their hotel rooms and Twin Cities restaurants, hustling to get guests for call-in interviews. KILT kept its spot on Radio Row even though Payne accelerated the madness by lunging at the bait that Innes dangled by sending a producer to eavesdrop on their show.
But the incident probably got more attention than the two stations are likely to get combined for the rest of the calendar year.
Consider the brief joint interview on WEEI. Boston has a million fewer listeners in its market than does Houston, but WEEI has two times the audience of KILT and KBME combined. I can pretty much guarantee you that more people in Boston were listening to Payne and Innes than were listening on their Houston stations.
Consider this: For the Dec. 7-Jan. 3 holiday book that is dominated each year by KODA’s (99.1 FM) wall-to-wall Christmas programming, the KILT and KBME morning shows each had a 1.9 percent share among men 25-54. They were tied for 21st place among all stations in men 25-54, which is the key demo for sports radio.
It is a continuing quandary, this Houston sports radio market, thanks in part to the fact that the iHeart and Entercom stations are limited to AM signals because of the crowded FM band. Will things change this year?
Four DVRs, no waiting
Former University of Houston golfer Fred Couples this week made the first of what SiriusXM says will be a monthly appearance on its PGA Tour Radio channel. … In the wake of recent events, I’m not surprised to find this week that NBC Sports has removed from its website its 2016 documentaries on the Karolyi Ranch, titled “The Ranch: Home of an American Sports Dynasty,” and on Bela and Martha Karolyi. Links now default to the NBC Olympics homepage. “Given recent events and out of respect for the victims, we decided to remove this content,” an NBC Sports spokesman said. “Given recent events and out of respect for the victims, we decided to remove this content,” an NBC Sports spokesman said.