Howard Stern did at least one commendable thing for his culture: every day he reminded us that radio is the lowest form of all media. In D.C., we needn’t have had Stern to point this out; not when we have WTEM’s Steve Czaban.
Steve Czaban - Headshot
Late Thursday “Czabe” took umbrage with Washington Capitals’ owner Ted Leonsis, who this week on his blog pointed out the obvious — that D.C. as a sports town is grossly, maliciously underserved by the MSM sports personalities and outlets assigned to covering the region’s teams. In fact, Czaban Thursday admitted as much:
“Washington is a political town first, and a Redskins town second. And if the Wizards ever get really good, it’ll be a basketball town. But that’s about it.”
Nothing there lending credence to the 200 million-strong number of Americans today disdaining the media for its arrogance. (Or is it 300 million?)
If you’re over 40 and a D.C. native you’re actually savvy enough to know that there was a time, not all that long ago, when the Redskins not only weren’t the only game in town, most folks didn’t bother going to games or following them. And thanks to Daniel Snyder, a healthy return to those glory days may not be far around the corner. Anyway, for the likes of Czaban, and by extension his radio station, such laziness of thought and work ethic makes for a comfy, sweatless broadcasting existence.
Czaban didn’t mean to prove the point we made last October 6, with our very first OFB post, but he did; and he underscored, italicized, and placed three exclamation points on Leonsis’ long-standing concern about D.C.’s sports media: they not only don’t aspire to be like the media in great sports cities who do cover the pro teams (all of them) with balance and pride, they’re proud to be gluttonously, unprofessionally imbalanced: “We’re not Philadelphia. We’re not Detroit. We’re not Boston. We’re not Montreal. We’re not New York,” Czaban crowed. Precisely, Steve.
Ovechkin, not Ovetchkin
“Sports talk radio is not a democracy of equally shared time between all sports,” the Czabe alleged Thursday. “The most popular sports get the most coverage in a variety of ways.” Shuttles to New York and Boston are rather affordable; the Czabe would do well to take one to audit the voices on sports radio there. Think the wretched Celtics of the past 8 or 10 years were blotted out of airwave discourse in Beantown? Or the even worse Knicks in New York?
Isn’t there something noble about a media that with the breadth of its coverage says to the outside world, in effect, “Our guys in shorts (or skates) are having a rough go of it right about now, but we’re behind them”? Or perhaps, “Our guys are terrible, and we’re upset about it, and here’s how we think they should fix it?” A debate, preferably a lively one, is better than silent indifference.
Truth be told, Czaban isn’t exactly on terra firma discussing anything puck (the omitted spellcheck on the last name of Washington’s most dynamic athlete in his blog file Thursday is one tipoff—Alex has no “t” in his surname).
Let’s be clear about Leonsis’ concern: he never asked WTEM to devote an hour to puck talk each autumn Sunday morning. What set him off was listening to WTEM while en route to a DC United game last week, on a night when no less than ESPN was in the house for coverage, and listening to the home town broadcast talent sneeringly deride the occasion. That’s right, it wasn’t even lacking or snide hockey coverage that set off the owner of the Capitals; it was soccer coverage.
Look, it’s patently obvious that our sports MSM here get off on the likes of Michael Vick and Terrell Owens instead of Alexander Ovechkin. We get that. We’re sorry for that—we wish they aspired to something more noble—but, to quote Czaban, “it is what it is.” So how about comporting yourselves, unprofessional as you are, with dignity — at least while the microphones are capturing your thoughts?
A few questions for the Czabe:
(1) First, do you and your colleagues even aspire to make Washington a better sports town than it’s been generally acknowledged to be; if not, why are you in the sports radio business? If not, shouldn’t you get out of the way and let someone else with a greater love of Washington sports try?
(2) If it really is “all about ratings,” and that’s why hockey is one of George Carlin’s seven unutterable words for radio guys in prime ratings slots, why don’t you just Sternify your program and go for the big ones: get some Hooters talent in the studio and have them pick the Sunday pigskin matchups by tossing wet tubetops at the helmets.
(3) In your estimation, is it actually written in the heavens that New York, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Detroit (Detroit??) have been and always will be great sports towns, and that D.C. never can be? Is it the height of their office buildings that makes it so? Better public transportation (don’t answer that)?
(4) Czaban takes pains to emphasize that his demographic is men aged 25-54, not the less-specific target of the average website; fair enough. But he presents it as a counterpoint to Leonsis’s Internet stats. While most websites’ statistics do not break down to such demographic detail, who do you think does most Internet surfing? Women aged 75+? If anything, Internet usage skews to a younger (and more profitable) age bracket than radio, by far.
Whatever caliber of sports town Washington is, Ted Leonsis this week embarked on a mission to make it better. In any other “sports town,” he wouldn’t have to be this kind of trailblazer.
[Admin Edit: For more views, visit Japers' Rink and the NHL FanHouse]
Stumble it!
38 Comments
Great stuff boys, as always and spot on to boot. RedskinTalk980 seems to revel in this sort of thing though, and I’m guessing they’ll be sporting a new “badge” within the next few days (about how long it will take for them to figure out somebody took exception to their 24/7 pigskin slavery). It is what it is, as the Szage would say. Luckily, their coverage isn’t even needed anymore.
XM.
Wow… what a raging douchebag this guy is.
Cza..Cza…Czaaa…I don’t care how you spell or pronounce your name. The “OveTchkin” word just summed up your knowledge of DC sport.
Well, you saw what I think of him. Morons like this are the reason why I only listen to satellite radio.
This town ain’t big enough for two mainstream media types whose last name starts with “Cza,” and you know where my allegiance lies…
Mr. Czaban really went too far when he talked about Ovechkin, incorrectly spelling the name, then maligning the team. There is no sense in this and it is very irritating to me. I won’t dip to his (Czaban’s) level with a response, and I hope Ted doesn’t either. Sorry, but I’m tuning in to XM radio; I just bought another one for the home and have one in each vehicle.
I don’t think those “glory days” you’re talking about are as close as you think when they have a waiting list long enough to refill their 90K+ stadium more than twice.
Furthermore, there is no chance that Ted is going to put the Caps on WHUR or WPGC, the top two rated radio stations in D.C., this season or any season for the forseeable future.
Least of all because the demographics of WHUR and WPGC do not lend themselves very well to the audience that the Caps are shooting for.
Do any of you really think Czaban misspelled Ovechkin’s name due to lack of knowledge of hockey in DC? Haha. Wow. Hook line and sinker.
Man…no wonder local sports media makes fun of hockey fans. It’s so easy because they get so angry over nothing.
The NHL and Ted for that matter need to focus on pleasing their existing fanbase compared to picking fights with people who are never going to enjoy the sport. People like what they like. People don’t like hockey.
I’m not a local to the DC area so I could care less about whose on the DC radio.
I dont think it really matters what town you are in, unless the team has made a major trade or is in the stanley cup finals….hockey isnt going to be on talk radio that much.
And you know what, thats fine with me. As long as I have blogs like this and Vog’s weekly podcast Im a happy camper.
Nice observation, JP.
And folks, really, what does it matter? Asking for more hockey coverage from 980 and their ilk is like asking Linda McCartney to play some Thelonius Monk. Theoretically, it could be done, but would you really want to hear it?
The basic issue that stirred this up was not the matter of MORE coverage, but rather going out of one’s way to ridicule a sport and their fans.
Don’t want to cover a sport? Fine…. but don’t constantly ridicule it.
Nice work boys. Decent MSM sports coverage seems a little bit of the chicken and the egg scenario. Which happened first? All major sports coverage decreased or listener/viewer/readerships requesting Redskins coverage increased.
The show is called the Sports reporters show why don’t they report on sports instead of one sport, otherwise change the name of the show to Redskins Opined.
Perhaps their cumes would be even higher if they actually spoke about more than one team and one sport and perhaps the reason people tune out when they actually do speak about other sports is because they are uninformed and offer little to the conversation.
I certainly don’t think Mr. Czaban purposefully misspelled Alex Ovechkin’s name to make a point or to bait people in to retorts because journalistically a stronger point would be made if he actually spelled it correctly, I think he just misspelled it.
Maruk, LOVE the McCartney-covering-Monk analogy — so vivid I shuddered and covered my ears.
Strungout, anyone summing up the Capitals as “a bona fide mega-star in Alex Ovetchkin surrounded by a bunch of extras from the movie Slapshot” is an @sshat. Whether or not the “t” was intentional doesn’t matter; it’s unprofessional, as was his characterization of the team.
Capsnut, no idea what you’re talking about — nobody mentioned the Caps on WHUR (for good reason).
Vogs said it best: XM. It’s a shame that local radio doesn’t take hockey or soccer seriously; but as local radio become increasingly irrelevant, so does their snide and dismissive coverage. XM!
I think Gustafsson just articulated the point I failed to make. That said, I hope Ted does appear on his show. If/when he does, I’ll listen.
But there’s another basic issue Gus: TEM’s aplogists are alleging that the station is just “giving area sports fans what they want to hear.” Really? TEM’s reach is far and wide across the D.C. metropolitan statistical area, within which, the Census Bureau tells us, reside some 5,286,227 folks, many of whom are sports fans. And yet Ted pointed out that during ad-rate-rich evening drive and “The Sports Reporters,” a grand total of 8,900 heartbeats are tuned in each evening — or less than half the average home attendance of United. If TEM is so in tune with the market’s sports urge, why are 99.9999 percent of DC-ers tuning out? How many instead are online reading about sports?
“pucksandbooks wrote: But there’s another basic issue Gus… “
No argument there.
Step one - stop blatantly ridiculing that which you do not know.
Step two - become the SPORTS Reporters.
So when Ted indirectly compares WTEM’s ratings to WHUR’s and wondering why WTEM doesn’t care about building the largest audience they possibly can and Czaban smacks him back into reality about targeted programming; it isn’t valid to ask why Ted isn’t trying to sell his product (the Caps that is) to the radio station with the highest ratings and listenership in the area?
In short, what’s good for the goose isn’t good for the gander right? Do as I say you should not as I do right?
Uh, yeah… Whatever you say boys… Keep up the good work…
I completely understand the lack of special interest coverage in sports radio. I am a fan of an under-covered sport as well. While it saddens me that we can never talk about it on the airwaves, I do understand why. When listening to John Thompson’s show, I notice that occasionally Al Koken heads-up and opens the lines to Caps talk. These segments are usually short, but the call-ins are rarely substantive in number. That indicates two things potenitally: hockey fans don’t listen to JT’s show or there just aren’t a ton of hockey fans per capita in the area. Whichever is true, just as my sport (soccer), there is not alot of interest, and not enought to garner significant coverage. I do try to get into hockey (via a puck-head co-worker), and thus I do enjoy reading this blog occasionally. But if the airwaves had tremendous Caps coverage, I wouldn’t listen much because I am not a hockey fan. Nor am I a Redskin fan, but I do love football and thus, listen.
I couldnt agree with you more - if they dont want to cover hockey, thats their choice (not that I agree with it at all). But do they have be just another talking head and bash hockey for the heck of it?
This bothers me particularly when I hear my friends/acquaintances, who dont know a thing about hockey, dismissing it out of hand because that is what the majority of the talkers out there are doing. It creates a hugely false and prejudiced view of hockey which makes it all the harder for me to convince a couple buddies to give hockey a chance and join me for a game.
It’s been said that there’s no such thing as bad publicity. Perhaps that’s true in politics, but it’s certainly not the case in sports (just ask David Stern or Roger Goodell).
For the NHL, silence from sports radio & MSM — while by no means ideal — is still better than constant belittling. Non-hockey sports fans are basically being told that hockey is a joke; casual fans hearing nothing about hockey from the MSM would be preferable to MSM ridicule.
So while not hearing about hockey on the radio is clearly disappointing… it’s better than hockey being the punchline for some sophomoric jokester.
I didn’t mind Ted’s first blog entry on this — I thought he made a good point, although most likely a futile one — but he’s been looking increasingly ridiculous as this has gone on. Yesterday evening’s rebuttal to Czaban was simply juvenile. It was poorly written, and made no real point at all, except “Neener, neener”.
I’m curious, though, about the “consistent ridicule” of the Caps I keep hearing about. I used to be a regular listener of the Sports Reporters, and although I heard them ridicule Caps fans often (ridicule that we apparently deserve, as this whole flap illustrates), I never noticed much in the way of ridicule of the team itself. I have since stopped listening to the show, so I would like to know if this has changed. Do they actually ridicule the Caps (as opposed to whiny Caps fans), and if so, what do they say? (And no, I don’t mean Czaban’s cheap shot on his blog; I mean ridicule that was actually aired on the radio.)
And if they do actually ridicule the Caps, why on earth would anyone want more coverage from these guys?
norske, your odds of finding someone who listens to WTEM are 8,900 in 5,286,227. In other words, don’t hold your breath waiting on an answer to your question. But TEM has Al Koken, a thoughtful voice on hockey, and one or two others in house who aren’t know-nothing haters. So it isn’t a question of asking for more coverage by ignoramuses necessarily.
Great article, but I do have to bring up one point:
In your estimation, is it actually written in the heavens that New York, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Detroit (Detroit??) have been and always will be great sports towns, and that D.C. never can be?
Why the question about Detroit? The Motor City is a great sports town, plain and simple. The four pro majors are all covered well, and the newspapers boast a deep bench of talented, insightful columnists. I’ve been away from there for 10 years, and miss the level of coverage more as time goes on.
Great post, guys. Czaban did a fantastic job of basically destroying his own point. He goes on and on about how DC isn’t a sports town, but maybe that’s partly do in part to stations such as WTEM which cover little other than the Skins.
One of the reasons why I think WTEM is foolish is that not only do they fail to adequately cover/respect sports such as hockey and soccer, they also give paltry coverage to the Nats. The struggles of hockey and soccer are well documented, but these guys are so brainwashed by football that they don’t even pay attention to the city’s MLB team.
Baseball is one of the top 3 sports in the country, and those clowns won’t even cover that. They’d rather spend hours and hours talking about Redskin passing drills at March mini-camp than actually talk about something interesting.
“Detroit. (Detroit???)”
Yeah. Detroit. Detroit is a great sports town.
Great.
Not in the area but I am glad people are all fighting this crap.
The Cap blogosphere, Vogs, the podcasts make it easy to be a fan 500 miles away.
Haha Detroit. You know what the nicest suburb of Detroit is? Chicago!
Wasn’t there a time back in the 1980’s when the Wings couldn’t even sell out The Joe, in part because their teams were so bad?
No one is arguing what sports are the most popular in the area and that will naturally dictate radio air time….
But the mocking of hockey in general always puzzles me. That is what always gets me. I don’t think WTEM bashed the Capitals team specifically other than some normal/expected jokes as a bad season ran down that happens to even the major sports in this area.
Precisely, Czaban is correct. This is not philadelphia, detroit, new york, boston, or montreal. In those cities hockey is beloved as much as their other major sports teams. In DC it is not. In DC folks do not care about the Caps (unfortunately). I wish Czaban and 980 talked more Caps,but understand why they do not. Say what you may, but Czaban is great at what he does.
There seems to be quite a bit of confusion with the purpose of Czaban and his ilk. Czab is the ‘Deal or No Deal’ of sports radio, and it seems that Caps fans think they should be getting ‘Jeopardy’. They call themselves the Sports Reporters, but they are actually the Sports Entertainers. They are nothing more than the sports equivalent to morning DJs. Their schtick is using the news of the day to generate a reaction to keep you listening, not to educate you. They get more reaction by belittling hockey and soccer fans than in discussing hockey or soccer, so that’s what they do. Even in football and golf, sports that Czab certainly knows, many of his comments are not ‘thoughtful sports opinion’, they quasi-inflammatory criticisms designed to generate discussion.
That makes him a sports clown and not a sports reporter. Maybe they should rename their program to Sports Circus for the braindead? That would fit your description.
Way to much energy being spent on Czaban. The guy is a ratings whore. Who cares what he says?
My advice to Ted… Keep doing what your doing. I guarantee sports talk radio will be talking about the Caps soon… they will be the talk of the town.
I don’t listen to sports radio around here. Mostly because I don’t live and die by one sport, nor do I care about the tabloid highlights of sports on the radio.
I might not even listen to a weekly talkshow about the Capitals only because the call-in folk would bring up the same points and lament the same things over and over (which is what happens).
Here’s what would get me to listen to a local sports show. A knowledgeable crew talking about a variety of sports — Scott Linn for hockey comes to mind. I remember him as very insightful and I always found a new appreciation for something or someone. Introduce me to a new one. Let me learn something about nuance or strategy or some rule or player I may not know. Expose me to something unfamiliar. (Bocchi?) Make it a sports show. Not a football show, or a baseball show. There are enough sport-specific ones.
I don’t even have to like all of everything covered. But it’s like pop radio. Mix up the songs so it’s not the same 23 that make up your predictable playlist. Give me something worthwhile and diverse, I’ll tune in.
Pro local teams and/or sports and/or reasons it would be nice to hear worthwhile discussion and debate about (start of a list):
Washington Capitals — hockey (Ovechkin, Kolzig and a whole lot of other players across the league I don’t need to elaborate upon here. Debate on rules changes pros and cons — aside from the shootout. Agree or not with it, I’m tired of that being the only thing people discuss.)
DC United — soccer (Will Moreno get the goals record? Beckham, like him or not, is news, but not all the news.)
Washington Freedom — soccer (yes they still play. Is the women’s league going to make a return? Even — how’s the team faring?)
Washington Redskins — football (pre-season injuries, roster paring, Gibbs return to glory?)
Washington Wizards — basketball (fun to hear sometimes even though I don’t care for basketball much. some of the personalities are great to hear about.)
Washington Mystics — basketball (see above. Barely missed the playoffs. Why? What could be done different? Off-season improvements?)
Washington Nationals — baseball (Worst team ever??? They’ve proved just about every sports reporter and prognosticator wrong this season.)
Washington Glory — softball (that’s right — there’s a pro softball team here. They play in a league with opponents like Jennie Finch of Olympics fame. A couple Olympians on the local squad, first place in the league regular season {championship series upcoming}, pitcher of the year, player of the year, probably rookie of the year, 5 all-stars and maybe coach of the year) — and I didn’t even know anything about fast-pitch softball before this year.
The sad thing is, the Redskins coverage usually sucks, too.
If sports radio talked about soccer, I would change the station.
What you guys seem to be missing about all the other towns that are considered great sports town, they all have a foundation of winning. Simply put Washington isn’t a great sports town because its teams have never laid the foundation to gather fans. Why would a radio station willingly talk about the Caps when theyre 30 points out of first place, and no one wants to hear about them? You give them a first place or even just a competitive team and I garauntee they will give the Caps time. Look at how much time they have given the wizards when they are in season because they have won.
The other cities where you say they all get equal coverage, thats only because each of their teams has done something at some point to develop a fanbase where the stations have incentive to cover that team. Look at Boston, every team has won at some time or another that has given them a reason to want to hear about their teams, the same with New York and Chicago. In DC the Wiz hadn’t been good since the early 70’s, the Caps have ~never~ been good, and the Nationals are a recent occurance.
Bottom line, if Mr. Leonsis wants coverage field a better team. Don’t blame the media that no one is interested in hearing about the Caps.
I don’t remember the airwaves burning in ‘97-’98. Maybe in the last round, but certainly not before.
Only hockey purists would whine about this. He is right, you are wrong–10 Stanley Cups and still no one would care in this town. I grew up in Wisconsin where we actually play hockey and it’s just never going to resonate the way some of the other sports do–especially in a city with the demographics of DC!
Isn’t it interesting how people who defend he position that hockey doesn’t matter are reading AND COMMENTING on hockey blogs?
2 Trackbacks/Pingbacks
Ted Leonsis And SportsTalk 980…
Here in Washington, it’s been hard to miss all the posts over at Ted’s Take taking issue with the way……
[...] Don’t expect any tears to be shed from the so called Sports Reporters. [...]
Post a Comment