There’s a model of Brandon Tierney that by no means made it.
The one sitting in his dad and mom’ basement, recording a demo on gear that made him sound like he was calling from inside a tunnel, then mailing it to each sports activities radio station within the nation from Arkansas to Wyoming. He bought two responses again, each were rejections. But one got here from a TV station in Denver, and he was so excited to see the decision letters on the envelope that it nonetheless gave him gasoline.
That story issues as a result of of the place it finally ends up. Tierney finally bought to WFAN, the station he’d been listening to because it launched in 1987, the one whose afternoon drive present he grew up with, the one whose names were so large they barely wanted final names. And when he bought there, it wasn’t what he’d imagined. Not as a result of the station had modified, however as a result of the world round it had.
On Monday’s BT Unleashed, Joe Benigno’s recent comments got here up, particularly Benigno’s assertion that WFAN won’t ever be what it as soon as was, the period of Don Imus, Mike and the Mad Dog, the Benigno-and-Somers overnights, Steve Somers schmoozing his way through 34 years on the overnight shift whereas Jerry Seinfeld referred to as in as Jerry from Queens. Tierney agreed the heyday was over. What he couldn’t let go of was the why, the concept that what made those voices so huge was purely about expertise.
“Back then, being a star on WFAN was pretty easy,” he said. “It was pretty easy because there was nowhere else to go. That’s just the reality of it … Back then, if you were on the air, you were almost by default a rock star. You were a persona that is almost impossible to replicate today.”
Which is why, when individuals invoke Francesa and Russo as the usual that right now’s hosts can’t measure as much as, Tierney desires to push again. Take Babe Ruth, for instance. You can have a look at the numbers and make the case that Ruth was the best of all time, and possibly he was, however he additionally by no means confronted the complete pool of competitors. Minorities weren’t allowed to play. The discipline was smaller. Tierney wasn’t saying Francesa and Russo weren’t nice. He was saying they were additionally working in situations that now not exist anyplace, and conflating the 2 does a disservice to everybody, together with the legends themselves.
“If you’re going to be the best player of all time, and you’re going to be a rockstar, and you’re going to have a superhero persona, don’t you think you had to kind of go against everybody to really have that tag?” Tierney mentioned. “I do. But now, you shouldn’t be victimized when you were born. In a lot of ways, those guys were lucky. You know, think about it.”
The irony is that the very fragmentation Tierney is describing has touched the WFAN legends themselves. Francesa called his own comeback a mistake, admitting he ought to have stayed retired after his December 2017 sendoff somewhat than returning 4 months later. The Sports Pope, who as soon as held a day drive in New York as a private fiefdom, went over his boss’s head to get again on the air, took a vital pay minimize, and ended up shedding to Michael Kay within the rankings. Even the most important rock stars within the station’s historical past couldn’t replicate what the station as soon as was, as a result of what the station as soon as was had extra to do with the second than the lads.
“The Fan will never be what it once was,” mentioned Benigno, who nonetheless hosts a weekly Saturday morning present for the station. “The heyday, we’ve all seen the heyday of the Fan and sports talk radio in general.”
The station that launched practically 4 a long time in the past and turned sports activities radio into a faith in New York, the one which made Francesa and Russo into one thing nearer to civic figures than broadcasters, the one the place Imus held courtroom each morning, and Benigno and Somers stored the town firm by means of the night time, that model of WFAN isn’t coming again. The viewers it as soon as owned has scattered throughout a thousand podcasts, YouTube channels, and streaming platforms, each pulling a little tougher yearly. The medium itself has modified too essentially. The hosts who’ve damaged by means of on this atmosphere — Stephen A. Smith, Pat McAfee — did it by being in every single place directly, by treating each platform as a launchpad, by making themselves unattainable to keep away from regardless of the place you were wanting.
“Each year, you get a little sliver of revenue chiseled off, and you get a little sliver of relevance chiseled off,” Tierney added. “It’s much less related than it’s ever been in my lifetime. That is a reality. And individuals can protest that. That’s high quality. Just have a look at the numbers from income, and simply open your eyes and see what’s happening on this planet in phrases of content material. And that’s the one reply.
