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Pete Rose, Neil Best Dragged Into Kay/Francesa Feud

“The New York sports radio war between Michael Kay and Mike Francesa has intensified as the ratings gap closed in the last year, but simultaneously broadcasting an interview with the same guest is a new battle tactic.”

Brandon Contes

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A few weeks ago Michael Kay was in two places at once, hosting the first hour of his radio show while simultaneously calling an afternoon Yankee game.  On Tuesday, Pete Rose performed a similar trick as New York sports radio listeners were able to hear the all-time MLB hit king on two rival stations at once, WFAN and ESPN NY.

The New York sports radio war between Michael Kay and Mike Francesa has intensified as the ratings gap closed in the last year, but simultaneously broadcasting an interview with the same guest is a new battle tactic. 

Francesa promoted the segment with Rose on Monday, touting it as the first stop on his new book tour, unaware that crosstown rival, Michael Kay had plans of conducting the same interview.  

The Rose interview with Kay started at 3:30pm, with Francesa’s set to begin at 4pm, but Rose’s segment on WFAN was pushed to an earlier start time once YES and ESPN began broadcasting his interview with The Michael Kay Show.  The ability to have an abrupt time change led many people on Twitter to assume the WFAN spot with Rose was prerecorded and Kay’s was live, when in fact it was Francesa’s show that had the live interview.

https://twitter.com/BackAftaThis/status/1135993842359054337

If watching the Kay Show on YES, the audience clearly saw the interview presented as “recorded earlier, but radio listeners might not have been aware Kay’s interview with Rose was the one on tape delay.

As Rose was sitting in studio with Francesa, Mike’s On producer, Brian Monzo was on Twitter, seemingly confused why he needed to prove to listeners the interview was occurring live.  Newsday’s Neil Best clarified that Kay’s interview with Rose was indeed prerecorded, which caused the story to take an interesting turn.

Kay sarcastically called Best a “sleuth” on Twitter, triggering the social media account, @BackAftaThis to defend the longtime Newsday columnist.  

https://twitter.com/BackAftaThis/status/1136001896320307200

For his next tweet, Kay referred to Francesa as a legendary broadcaster and directed his animosity toward @BackAftaThis, the Twitter account notorious for making fun of WFAN’s iconic host.  @BackAftaThis has garnered a national following since Francesa unretired a year ago, by continuously sharing Francesa’s on-air gaffs.  The account has yet to be shut down by Entercom and WFAN, consistently helping Francesa to go viral on social media, even if it’s due to people laughing at his mistakes.

Kay questioned whether or not the man behind the curtain of the @BackAftaThis account was working for WFAN.  Although the account does bring Francesa a lot of media attention, it’s hard to imagine Mike allowing FAN to employ someone with the sole purpose of broadcasting his embarrassing mistakes as a full-time job. 

What should have remained a battle between the two New York afternoon sports radio hosts, ended up as a fight between two Francesa foes, all while the Sports Pope pretended to have no idea what was going on. 

Brandon Contes is a freelance writer for BSM. He can be found on Twitter @BrandonContes. To reach him by email click here.

Sports Radio News

Doug Gottlieb Details Interviewing For College Basketball Head Coaching Vacancy

“I’ve told people that for the radio element to — for the right thing — I’d give it up. The (podcast), I’m not giving it up.”

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Fox Sports Radio host Doug Gottlieb recently interviewed for the vacant head coaching job at Wisconsin-Green Bay and detailed the experience on his podcast.

“I got a chance to talk to (Wisconsin-Green Bay AD) Josh Moon several times during the year after they had made their coaching job available and my approach to how I’ve done these things — and this is not the first time I’ve gone down this path, but this was a different path,” Gottlieb said on his All Ball podcast.

“This is a low-major, mid-major job, and there’s no connection there. I’ve told people that for the radio element to — for the right thing — I’d give it up. The (podcast), I’m not giving it up. I love doing it and I think there’s a very smart world where if I’m coaching I can still do this podcast and still do it with basketball people all over the country and the world, and it’s kind of like a cheat code.”

He continued by saying that seeing Shaka Smart be successful at Marquette has motivated him to continue to search for the right fit as a college basketball coach.

“That’s what I want to do. And last year when I was coaching in Israel, that also continued to invigorate me…this is something that I would really like to do. It has to be the right thing. It has to be the right AD who hits the right message.”

He continued by saying that a sticking point of negotiations was he wasn’t willing to give up his nationally syndicated radio program for the job. He was willing to take less money for his assistants pool, but also to continue doing his radio show.

Gottlieb did not get the position with the Phoenix, noting that he was a finalist but was never offered the job. The position ultimately went to Wyoming assistant coach Sundance Wicks. Wicks had previous head coaching experience and had worked with Green Bay athletic director Josh Moon at Division II Northern State. He admitted he wasn’t necessarily “all-in” on the job due to the current ages of his children and whether the timing was right to uproot his family to move to Northeastern Wisconsin.

The Fox Sports Radio host does have coaching experience. He has worked as a coach for the U.S. men’s basketball team at the Maccabiah Games, sometimes referred to as the Jewish Olympics.

Gottlieb’s father — Bob — was the head men’s basketball coach at Wisconsin-Milwaukee from 1975-1980, compiling a 97-91 record.

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Sports Radio News

Waddle & Silvy: Scott Hanson Told Us to Lose His Number

“We didn’t call him back, so he set out what he wanted to do.”

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Aaron Rodgers took immense pride in the fact that he told ESPN NFL Insider Adam Schefter to “lose his number” while discussing his future earlier this week on The Pat McAfee Show. ESPN 1000’s Waddle & Silvy said they’ve experienced similar treatment from guests on their radio show.

While discussing the Rodgers interview with McAfee, the pair admitted that NFL RedZone host Scott Hanson once told their producer to stop trying to book him for interviews on the program.

“I believe the presentation was ‘Do me a favor: lose my number after this interview’,” Tom Waddle said. “So he tried to do it politely. Scott Hanson did. Get out of here. That concept is foreign to me. How about ‘Hey, next time you text me, my schedule is full. I can’t do it, but thanks for thinking of me’. ‘Lose my number?’ You ain’t the President, for Christ’s sake. I’m saying that to anyone who would say that. ‘Lose my number?’ We’re all in the communication business. I just don’t know — why be rude like that to people? What does that accomplish? You know what it accomplished? We didn’t call him back, so he set out what he wanted to do.”

Co-host Mark Silverman then mentioned that the show once tried to book Hansen and NFL Red Zone host Andrew Siciliano together in the same block, with the idea of doing a trivia game to see who the supreme Red Zone host was. Siciliano agreed, but Hansen declined.

The pair also confirmed that an NFL Network personality had told them to lose their number, but couldn’t remember if it was Rich Eisen or not.

Silverman later joked that maybe Hanson was getting a new phone with a new number, and was politely sharing with the producer that he could lose the current phone number because he would share his new number in short order.

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Sports Radio News

Seth Payne: Aaron Rodgers ‘Makes Gross Inaccuracies’ When Calling Out Media

“This is where Rodgers does this thing where he, in calling out reporters for their inaccuracies, makes gross inaccuracies in his accusations.”

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Aaron Rodgers

Aaron Rodgers is always mad at the media for the inaccurate things he says they report, but according to Sports Radio 610 morning man Seth Payne, no one is more inaccurate than the quarterback himself.

Friday morning, Payne and his partner Sean Pendergast played audio of Aaron Rodgers responding to a question about a list of players he provided to the Jets demanding they sign. Rodgers called the idea that he would make demands “so stupid” and chastised ESPN reporter Dianna Russini, who was the first to report it.

“Now to be clear, Dianna Russini didn’t say demands in her tweet. She said wishlist,” Pendergast clarified.

They also played a clip of Russini responding to Rodgers on NFL Live saying that she stands by her reporting and it is her job to reach out to confirm that it is true.

“This is where Rodgers does this thing where he, in calling out reporters for their inaccuracies, makes gross inaccuracies in his accusations,” Seth Payne said.

He added that if Rodgers is being serious, he is doing some serious nitpicking. He claims that he didn’t give the Jets a list, but that he spoke glowingly about former teammates and told the Jets executives that he met with who he enjoyed playing with during his career.

Payne joked that maybe he wrote down the names in a circle pattern so that it was not a list. Pendergast added that he could have had Fat Head stickers on his wall that he pointed to instead of writing anything at all.

In Payne’s mind, this is a case of Russini catching stray frustration. Neither in her initial tweet nor in any subsequent media appearance did she use the phrase “demands”.

“What he’s actually responding to in that instance is Pat McAfee is the one that described it as a list of demands,” Seth Payne said.

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