I can't believe you the Afternoon Saloon gives such little coverage to college football. So much has happened in the Big 10 this year, and all you have to add is rehashed stuff you stole from Teddy Greenstein? Really guys? Do you realize how many college sports fans are in Chicago? Rehash stories about how old Joe Pa is and how Zook in on the hot seat... yeah those topics haven't been addressed enough.

I know that college sports isn't your respective core areas of expertise, but I'd at least like you to try to improve it. If a show like Paul Finebaum's radio show in friggin' Birmingham Alabama could be so wildly popular that he gets picked up nationally by Sirius and XM, you'd think that you might try to capitalize on the fact that you have the biggest concentration of alumni from the Big 10 right in your backyard.

Step up your game, Carm, Jurko and Harry

Okay...thats your opinion. Mine is that college sports in general are secondary concerns and should never interfere with the priorities in a city like Chicago-where Pro sports are played and enjoyed. If you want it covered better, step up YOUR game. Call in with relevant information and ask questions that force the guys to do more research into college football and you will have a product you like better.

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Go Cubs!!!!

My take is that if both teams are in contention at this time of the year a host should talk about baseball 80% of the time. If one team is still contending it should get about 60% of the coverage. Once the football season actually starts the Bears should be covered heavily on Fridays and Mondays. But the topics aren't really driven by the listeners. The hosts talk about whatever they want. If the Bears were 15-0, Murph would find time to devote half his show to discussing whether Piniella should have been fired. The Sox might be in the ALCS vs. the Yankees and Mac will be discussing Purdue football.

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Don't take it personally.

Wrecked em? Damned near killed 'em!

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Disclaimer: Most of my posts are not suitable for work or home viewing.

The name's Rockmore. Beef Rockmore

Mud, you got to look at the show and the station there at. I imagine working at ESPN, they give you a list of what to talk about and probably want the Cubs misery, Sox in first place, and the Bears talked 90-95% of the time and the rest may go to the Blackhawks.

If Mac was still there, they would talk college football, because he always talked about the Big 10 now, especially with Media Day going on. On the Danny Mac show today, he brought up his top 10 Purdue Boilermakers he seen played, Drew was number 1. Mac knows people are ready for football and can digress from the baseball, because that probably what the audience wants.

At ESPN, they probably want you talking the local pro sports more and have little room to digress.

that's funny

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

I love College Football, but devoting a lot of time to COACHSPEAK at the Big 10 Media Day isn't nearly as entertaining as HARRY'S latest take on the Cubbies.
I sure as hell hope Ricketts socks him with a PSL for his season tickets!!!

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There goes one over the fence..Tru Link Fence..Beauty, Privacy Security....Call Tru Link.
Murph's Union 76 Truck Stop....A great Thanksgiving Tradition!!!!

WOO LIFE!!!!

Oh, yeah. I can't wait. That fuckin' bandwagon jumping Harry has had those tickets since 1985. 1985. Suddenly they won a division in '84 and Harry got his tickets. Big fuckin' Cub fan. Literally.

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Don't take it personally.

Calling a guy who's had Cubs season tickets for 25 consecutive years of Championship Cubs baseball, including the stellar early-'90s crew, a bandwagon jumper?

You're a tough crowd, Joe.

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You know me like that.

I just think it's funny that he grabbed those tickets the year after they finally won. They've been a pretty hot ticket ever since 1984. Where was Harry before that when the grandstand was closed?

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Don't take it personally.

I fully understand pro sports deserves priority. Go ahead and rehash the same arguments over and over and over again about why the Cubs suck or perhaps psychoanalyze GM's trade decisions. My point is that Chicago is arguably the epicenter of Big Ten sports. And I think most would agree that the popularity of college football is not insignificant. College football surpasses pro baseball in terms of viewership and ad dollars spent. And for the major afternoon sports radio show to simply make passing comments on college football is just lazy.

Point taken on the call-ins. But I'd argue that most call-ins are reactionary. In other words, the radio jock starts a topic and then callers call in with their viewpoint on said topic. If the Afternoon Saloon don't actually give any air time to college football, it's kinda hard to get passed the call-in screeners... at least that's been my experience.

I'd rather hear more about Mac's parking adventures.

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

I don't think pro sports "deserves" more coverage. It depends on what the story is at the time. The Cats going to The Rose Bowl should get more airtime than a 16-25 Bulls team. When DePaul had those great teams in the late 70s/early 80s, they were more important than any pro team. It should be driven by the story rather than the hosts personal likes and dislikes. But it's up to management to correct that and apparently they don't give a fuck or they just don't know.

But these radio hosts like to have it both ways. When it suits him li'l danny bernstein will stress that he and Terry aren't reporters, they're talk show hosts so they can say what they want. In a different circumstance they'll act like they're Woodward and Bernstein, citing sources and suggesting questions to the guys who are actually on the firing line.

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Don't take it personally.

Can we at least agree that college sports deserves slightly more air time than it gets now from ESPN 1000? In addition, the degree of coverage needs to be much more improved than making fun of RichRod or telling us that Joe Pa is really old. And while we're at it, consider this before you scoff at college football:

*Despite a difficult economy, a near-record of 48.3 million fans, down just 1 percent from 2008, attended games at the 630 NCAA schools during the 2009 season, including the postseason.
* In 2010 ESPN notched its most-viewed regular season since 1994 and its most viewed bowl season ever while CBS Sports averaged its highest ratings since the sport returned to the network in 1996. VERSUS, concluding its fourth year of college football coverage, produced its highest-rated and most-watched season.
* ESPN2 experienced its most-viewed season ever, averaging 1.1 million households and 1.5 million viewers, representing increases of 8% and 11% respectively. The average ESPN2 rating remained at 1.1 for both seasons.
* ESPN's College GameDay had its most-viewed season ever, averaging 1.7 million households and 2 million viewers with a 1.7 rating for increases of 14 percent, 12 percent, and 13 percent, respectively, over last year.
* ESPN's Heisman Trophy presentation marked its highest-rated and most-viewed show ever, posting a 4.1 rating, 4,045,000 households and 5,990,000 viewers, for 32% increases over last year while The Home Depot ESPNU College Football Awards show averaged a 1.2 rating, 1,166,000 households and 1,593,000 viewers for a 33 percent ratings increase and a 48 percent increase in viewers.
* Both ESPN's College Football Final and College Football Live studio programs experienced viewership growth between 12-17 percent, attracting an average of 1.5 million and 478,000 viewers respectively.
* NBC garnered a 16 percent increase in its average viewership for its Notre Dame coverage, pulling in 3.7 million viewers up from 3.2 million per game in 2008.
* The Big Ten Network's ratings increased across the board in 2009, with its average afternoon telecasts improving by 28 percent over 2008 and its eight primetime games exploding by a staggering 183 percent. The channel's telecasts of afternoon games averaged a 2.3 household rating with the primetime games pulling a 1.7 rating.
* The Mtn. - MountainWest Sports Network saw an 18 percent increase in its average household viewership from 2008 for the slate of 30 games that it carried in 2009 and 2008.
* Combined viewership for all bowl games also increased from 203,629,913 viewers (143,538,047 households) last season to 225,399,846 (155,331,079 households) in 2009-10, or about an 11 percent jump

I don't think that's possible. Are you talking nationally?

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Don't take it personally.

Sorry for this rant. I'm just stuck on my drive home listening to Paul Finebaum tell me how the worst SEC team could compete for the Super Bowl. I used to have Bill King's Rivals Radio show, but now that is just in the morning. I like the Afternoon Saloon at times, but I'm more than a little frustrated at the content. And with Mac gone, I'm afraid it is only getting worse.

I'll stop now.

Love the passion MUD, but no. College sports discussion, even if it's March Madness or Bowl season talk is the epitome of PTFB radio for me. I'd rather hear "What's in the vending machine?"

Listen to that guy from Alabama or whatever clusterfuck state he was from and his college sports show that's now on satellite radio. Don't pollute my terrestrial radio airwaves with college sports talk. Please. I beg you.

per viewing hour. obviously there are more baseball games televised, so you can't say that on a gross dollars... sorry for being misleading, but I'm clearly talking my book.

I would say that more people do watch College Football than Baseball, when we get college football games going in about 4 and half weeks, then we will have a comparison, MLB on Fox does about a 2, I would think Uconn vs Michigan will have a higher rating.

This is a bad example, but when the Phillies played the Rays in the World Series, when game 3 was delayed by rain, that same night Penn State-Ohio State beat that game ratings wise. It's a bad example because that game 3 finished when most people were asleep, but Ohio State-Penn State was a night game.

That's silly. It's an apples/oranges comparison. Even pro football wouldn't outdraw baseball on an even playing field. One game is played in summer when there are millions of things to do and there are 162 games. The other has 16 games in mostly shitty weather when no one wants to be outside.

I'll tell you what. Let's make the MLB season 16 Saturday games from June through September. You could fill five Michigan Stadiums for the Yankees/Red Sox game.

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Don't take it personally.

Are you trying to say that baseball is the most popular sport in America?

I thought that idea died a long time ago.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Of course it's still the most popular sport.

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Don't take it personally.

So how would it outdraw football?

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

The most popular sport starts Sunday with Bengals-Cowboys and more people will watch that game than the Red Sox-Yankees on ESPN night.

The people that would fill 5 Michigan Stadium would probably be ESPN people.

Again, it's apples and oranges. The time of year the games are played is a huge factor. The amount of games is another. Some of football's "popularity" is actually the popularity of gambling/fantasy sports. If football is so much more "popular", why do fans foam at the mouth over records broken by drugged players but they don't care one iota about juicers (or at the very least guys running behind juicers) holding rushing records? Baseball is just more important than football. Football is a distraction to get Midwesterners through shitty winters.

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Don't take it personally.

No they won't.

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Don't take it personally.

You may find this interesting. http://www.bizoffootball.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=575:at-midseason-nfl-tv-ratings-exceptionally-strong&catid=40:television&Itemid=57

Individual World Series games lose consistently to a bunch of regular season NFL games.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Rick, not sure if this matters to the argument, but what do you think it would be like if you removed the gamblers and fantasy players?

It would go down, just like it would for baseball and basketball and pretty much any sport.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Way more for Football though, especially the gamblers.