Warriors’ switch to 95.7 The Game was the right move
By Eric He
In a surprising move on Thursday, the Golden State Warriors switched radio flagship stations from KNBR 680 to 95.7 The Game.
Growing up, listening on sports on the radio in Bay Area automatically meant turning the dial to KNBR 680, the 50,000 watt juggernaut and the flagship station of just about every local team.
But in recent years, the FM station 95.7 The Game has taken a fairly large piece of KNBR’s pie. Since it switched to sports programming in 2011 after securing the A’s radio broadcast, The Game has also snagged the Raiders and now has its biggest coup yet — persuading the Warriors to make the switch from its AM counterpart.
Many people may (understandably) not care about this — they just want to hear their team on the radio. But as a journalism major and a sports media nut, I’m fascinated by this, perhaps one of the biggest shifts in the Bay Area sports radio landscape, ever.
It’s a win-win for both sides. For The Game, they land the hottest team in the market, a team that in the last two years won a championship, won 73 games in a season, and signed Kevin Durant. For a station that sputtered in its early years trying to lure listeners from the AM dial, The Game adds scores of listeners who will tune in for the Warriors game and perhaps stay for their talk shows.
For the Warriors, it’s essentially a giant middle finger in the face of KNBR, whom they’ve partnered with for the past 32 years. KNBR is also the flagship station of the Giants and 49ers, but it’s no secret that the Giants hold very high priority. A Giants game and a Warriors game coinciding at the same time always meant the Warriors would move to a sister station, no matter how big it was.
The major problem was that the Warriors’ recent deep playoff lasted into the start of the baseball season, meaning crucial games were being aired elsewhere while a Giants’ regular season affair (or even spring training games) were given the grand treatment on 50,000 watts. Indeed, half (12 of 24) of the Warriors’ playoff games last season aired on KGO 810 to make room for the Giants.
Warriors President Rick Welts’ statement reads in part: “Under the terms of this partnership, virtually every Warriors game — including the playoffs — will be broadcast on 95.7.”
Don’t tell me the second clause of that sentence wasn’t meticulously and purposefully crafted.
KNBR may not have had much of a say, given the station is partly-owned by the Giants. But the Warriors had a legitimate gripe about being cast aside. While the local market and the rest of the country couldn’t get enough of the Warriors, the team’s own flagship station resorted to airing hours and hours of early-season baseball coverage.
In the grand scheme of things, this is good for Bay Area sports fans. More coverage options is always a good thing, and in an age where newspapers everywhere are folding, it’s good to see a local radio station pop up and dig into KNBR’s monopoly. So kudos to 95.7 The Game for jumping in at the right time, and kudos to the Warriors for taking action.
A few other random notes about this:
– Hopping on Twitter, it seemed like the main concern of fans was that The Game had a weaker signal compared to KNBR and would not reach as far. But The Game’s press release indicates it has established affiliations with KRTY in San Jose and KUIC in Vacaville to reach fans to the south and the north.
– Longtime radio play-by-play man Tim Roye will make the jump with the team. This is great news. But Tom Tolbert, the color commentator, may run into a few hurdles as he has a talk show on KNBR. If he can’t continue calling games, that’s a real shame — Roye and Tolbert together are a joy to listen to.
– For what it’s worth, Entercom (which owns 95.7 The Game) is now the flagship network of more Bay Area teams than Cumulus. The Game is home to the Warriors, A’s and Raiders while the Sharks air on 98.5 KFOX, also of Entercom. Meanwhile, KNBR is down to just the Giants and 49ers.
– A final note: as the esteemed basketball orator Bob Fitzgerald would say, this truly is “the game within the game.” The only thing that would make this better is if Fitz moved to 95.7 and paired up with Greg Papa on a talk show — now that would be radio gold.