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Brian Troutman Sports and Radio: Unquestionably, sports have infiltrated all forms of media in the United States. As much as a third of many major newspapers is dedicated to sports coverage. Television viewers can turn to broadcast networks such as ABC and Fox, as many as 5 different flavors of ESPN, and numerous other cable and satellite outlets to see their favorite teams go head to head or hear sports’ greatest pundits analyze and argue with fervor previously reserved for The McLaughlin Group. Coverage of sports has also found a home on radio, a venue which has seen sports radio stations propagate on the AM dial like rabbits. Listeners tune in to broadcasts of games as well as call-in shows where callers can debate sports issues with seasoned sports journalists. Like most types of broadcasting, sports radio is supported by advertising, and because commercials are carefully aimed at the target audience of the program, identifying the advertisers will generally reveal what type of people are listening. Watch The Price is Right on the CBS daytime lineup, and after seeing ads for Super PoliGrip and Tide, the viewer can quickly conclude that the audience is largely comprised of senior citizens and housewives. In the same manner, a person could listen to a sports radio program and draw conclusions about the types of listeners who are tuning in. Of course, many spectators of culture find it quite easy to make broad assumptions about groups of people in our society, and sports fans, comprising a large and diverse subculture, are not free from stereotypes themselves. While some individuals have developed preconceived notions of what the make-up of sports fans is, the advertising on sports radio may reveal that the audience is somewhat different than these individuals believe. Two New York radio programs provide good examples of talk radio; one is sports talk show and the other is a general news-driven forum. The Mac and Sid Show airs on New York’s flagship sports radio station WFAN between 10 AM and noon while The John Gambling Show airs on New York’s premier news/talk station WABC in the same time period. Both programs are local and are not syndicated to a national audience, and both shows are caller-driven. The major distinction between the two radio programs is that WFAN’s Mac and Sid Show is a sports call-in format while WABC’s John Gambling Show focuses in local and national news of the day. An Hour of The John Gambling Show on WABC The John Gambling Show provides an example of a fairly average topical talk radio program. Host John Gambling takes converses with guests as well as New York City metro callers, and his show usually tackles the national news headlines of the day, but sometimes discussions cross over to local issues of interest to New Yorkers. Commercial breaks and sponsored weather and traffic reports are intermixed throughout the program.
An Hour of The Mac and Sid Show on WFAN Opposite the news-oriented The John Gambling Show, WFAN offers sports fans The Mac and Sid Show. Program hosts Sid Rosenberg and Jody McDonald take calls from sports-obsessed New Yorkers and interview guests after the daily conclusion of the famed national Imus in the Morning program. The discussions often focus on the New York teams, but they often cover other sports match-ups of interest. The Mac and Sid Show features several commercial breaks and sponsored “20/20 Sports” updates during the program.
Analysis of the Results A comparison the advertisers of WFAN and WABC indicates that some of the assumptions about the audience may be true and that others probably not. The audience appears to be primarily male, and most of the commercials are geared toward men. While WABC has at least one sponsor, Effexor XR, that seems to be targeting women (women report suffering from depression at a two to one ratio over men), WFAN has none. The list of Mac and Sid Show advertisers shows that at least a portion of WFAN listeners are overweight and in need of exercise, as two of the sponsors of The Mac and Sid Show are UltraCarb and New York Sports Clubs. Some of the advertising on WFAN is also sports themed; the Cottman Transmission commercial features a NASCAR driver taking charge of a family’s minivan, and the Stadium Ford/Jeep/Chrysler ad includes a sports-type male announcer over the theme to Monday Night Football. More interestingly, perhaps, is the observation that The John Gambling Show audience may not be more affluent than that of The Mac and Sid Show. While WABC runs ads for pre-owned Fords and the New York public transportation system, WFAN airs commercials for a Lexus dealer. Many of the ads on WABC seem to stress value and discounts, while the spots on WFAN tend to place importance on style and convenience. This observation tends to poke holes in the notion that sports fans would be more of a blue-collar group. While far from conclusive, this evidence yielded from this investigation at least proves to be interesting. Expanding the amount of time or the field of stations may help to make the study more valid, but even the initial findings of this limited research produce intriguing results, and it must make us question the accuracy of the stereotypes that some people hold regarding sports fans in our society.
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