UPDATE: WEEI is pushing back on this report, denying that it is true. Finn’s source for the story was the agency posting job listings which said that, yes, WEEI was looking to do the talk show format. WEEI is now saying that the agency was merely speculating and that it will still be a traditional broadcast.
Both WEEI and Finn say they will have full reports soon, so I guess we’ll see.
9:47 AM: WEEI carries Boston Red Sox games on the radio in the northeast. For the past three seasons, Tim Neverett and Joe Castiglione have been the broadcast team. Following what was reportedly a difficult relationship with the station, Neverett has allowed his contract with WEEI to end, however, meaning that the station needs to do something else with their broadcast.
It seems that they’re going to do something radical. Chad Finn of the Boston Globe:
That was yesterday. Just now, Finn confirmed it:
Story will be up later, but WEEI is going ahead with plans to do the talk-show format during its Red Sox broadcast. Saw the job posting sent to staatalentDOTcom subscribers last night.
— Chad Finn (@GlobeChadFinn) December 13, 2018
I have no idea how that will work in practice but I can’t imagine this turning out well. At all.
Hiring talk show hots to call games -- adding opinion and humor and stuff while still doing a more or less straightforward broadcast -- would probably be fine. It might even be fun. But this is not saying that’s what is happening. It says it’s changing it to a talk show “format.” I have no idea how that would work. A few well-done exceptions aside, there is nothing more annoying than sports talk radio. It tends to be constant, empty chatter about controversies real or imagined and overheated either way. It usually puts the host in the center of everything, forcing listeners -- often willingly -- to adopt his point of view. It’s almost always boorish narcissism masquerading as “analysis.”
But even if it was the former idea -- talk show hosts doing a conventional broadcast -- it’d still be hard to pull off given how bad so many talk show hosts are. There are a couple of sports talk hosts I like personally and I think do a good job, most are pretty bad, including the ones WEEI has historically preferred.
Which is to stay that this is bound to be awful. And that’s if they even remember to pay attention to the game. Imagine them taking a few calls while the Red Sox mount a rally, get sidetracked arguing over whether some player is “overrated” or whatever and listeners get completely lost.
My thoughts and prayers go out to Red Sox fans who listen to the games on the radio.
