When I first heard Paul McCaffery had been fired by KNBR 680, it was surprising. That’s because when I think of the station, I hear the voices of Murph and Mac and Tom Tolbert. Of course, being born and raised in Sacramento, KHTK Sports 1140 was a huge part of growing up. So much so that I even did an internship at the station. An interesting experience, to say the least.
However, some of my favorite memories are just driving up and down the West Coast listening to sports talk radio. You haven’t lived life until you find yourself scanning radio stations hoping to find someone talking sports while drinking a pumpkin pie milkshake in a Newport, Oregon Artic Circle parking lot.
It wasn’t always pretty, and on-air personalities could not help bring issues upon themselves, but sports radio in the West was weird, wild and wonderful. And it probably isn’t long for this world.
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Sports radio in the West
Some of my earliest memories are listening to Sacramento’s 1380 The Score, a station that has long since died. I don’t even remember what happened to it. Just one day, it wasn’t The Score anymore.
After that, I always loved going to bed with the radio tuned into a sports talk radio station. This is probably while I still randomly sing out the One on One Sports and Sports Fan Radio Network stingers. Anyway, my options were limited to Sports 1140 and KNBR 680. Well, at least during the day.
You never really knew what signals would be available at night. There was definitely a week in early 2002 when I got some sports station from Winnipeg. Of course, the second the sun came up, the feed transformed into pure static.
As I got older and started traveling more, my love of sports talk radio in the west only grew. When I lived in Seattle for a year, I got super into KJR 950. When I traveled down to Southern California, I found The Petros and Money Show and was blown away.
Driving through Oregon was always one of the best experiences. For whatever reason, the state had robust sports talk scene and I believe Portland still has three stations focused on sports to this day.
Then I moved to the Palouse and gained an appreciation for those small market hosts in places like Spokane and Tri-Cities covering minor league hockey, high school sports and giving those places a voice.
Up and down the west coast, there were small stations with one or two local shows that were fascinating to listen to if you happened to be driving through the right place at the right time.
Of course, all that is disappearing. KNBR’s staff cuts are the latest cull in an industry that doesn’t seem to care about being local. Why pay someone to talk about local topics when you already have a national team who can carry the baton for the same four topics?
Look, there are some good national sports talk radio hosts. But too many have just become caricatures of themselves. A funhouse mirror version of what a radio personality should be. And a few have just sold out entirely. Fair play to them, but there ain’t no coming back from that.
What we have lost was something amazing and not found anywhere else.
Sports radio in the West was weird
Sports radio in the West was weird because it isn’t miserable. At the national level, things are very much, “if it bleeds, it leads.” Everyone wants to cry or be angry. On the west coast, things were always oddly positive.
Maybe positive is the wrong word. There is always more hope. Hell, last year Damien Barling spent like an hour talking about how KZ Okpala could be a key contributor for the Kings. Every Seattle Mariners’ season is greeted with an almost comical amount of “what if” optimism. Countless local hosts try to put a positive spin on whatever their lowly college or minor league sides are doing.
There is also a love for the hypothetical. I talk about this in my bizarro Warriors dynasty video, but hosts like Damon Bruce have no issues going down the rabbit hole and I’m all for it. Monta Ellis or Steph Curry? These are fun discussions that are so much more interesting than fire the coach or trade everyone.
Sure, those topics still happen out west. You’ll get some negativity. But there is also a lot more hope that teams are only a move or two away. It’s weird but awesome.
Sports radio in the West was wild
Do the Kings stay in Sacramento without Carmichael Dave? Maybe but his efforts helped? The host of Blind Date also forging a career in sports talk. Only in LA. Mitch Levy getting popped in a prostitution sting? That one stung as I really enjoyed Mitch in the Morning. Issac Ropp from Primetime with Isaac and Suke being found to have more than two dozen traffic and parking violations.
They don’t call it the Wild West for nothing. You never knew what was going to happen from events to trades breaking on air to performers doing really dumb things. In their defense, most have owned up to their mistakes with one ridiculous exception.
Sports radio in the West was wonderful
It doesn’t get any better than sports radio in the West. From the 5,000-watt flamethrowers to the small-town stations, this rich tapestry of talk was wonderful in its heyday. You didn’t like everyone on air. But you could at least respect the craft and approach while simply enjoying having something for your market.
Sports radio in the West wasn’t mind-numbing loud, relentlessly aggressive or painstakingly repetitive. Even the braggarts and douches were tolerable. Ironically, this is perhaps its downfall. Loud, aggressive and repetitive is apparently what sells in the world of sports talk.
This is undoubtably bad news for us out west. Sure, there are podcasts and content creators focusing on sporting topics out here. But it’s not the same. Live radio is an art form. A real-time connection to the world. That is what we are losing with more local hosts being let go in favor of cookie-cutter national programs.
It’s a shame that one day, people won’t know the struggle of driving through the Oregon high desert, California’s San Joaquin Valley or the Washington Cascades and fumbling with the radio dial in hopes finding something to listen to.
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