FanNation - The Republic of Sport

I've been away from blogging, but I'm back because one sports team in this town really has done us fans a horrific disservice. You all know who I am talking about. Dan Snyder and the Burgundy & Gold Empire.

Mr. Snyder expanded the Burgundy and Gold Empire considerably in 2006, when he bought three little radio stations on the outskirts of Washington and declared them "Redskins Radio." The venture has been pretty much a flop--the stations' signals are too weak for most fans to hear them at home or in the car. So now Mr. Moneybags has bought three more stations, including Washington's longstanding, dominant sports station, Sports Talk 980 (WTEM).

Bruce Gilbert, Red Zebra's chief executive, said that his company would encourage, "within reason," a freewheeling exchange of opinions. "You can't be in the sports radio business without talented talk-show hosts like Steve Czaban and Andy Pollin," said Gilbert, a former ESPN Radio executive, in an interview. "You hire people to be opinionated. You want them to be opinionated. If we didn't, why would we buy these stations?" If you believe his garbage, I've got land in the middle of the Potomac to sell you.

If I want to call in and bemoan a play call or call out some player or players who looked like they weren't performing as well as I thought they should, you can't call into the Redskins Radio apologists, you call WTEM. It's like when Snyder bought up ExtremeSkins.com, it used to be a great outlet for venting (like TSN...), but not anymore. Also, Danny boy wants to hire a blogger, kudos to Dan Steinberg and Chris Mottram for turning that gig down. Would you like to have your writing censored?

This kind of thing has been going on for some time now, and in both directions. The Chicago Tribune in better times bought the Cubs and Wrigley Field. The New York Times owns a chunk of the Boston Red Sox (leading many Yankee fans to argue that Times' columnists write more favorably about the Boston team than about their hometown squads).

But what about the other sports? For anyone who has ever listened to Redskins Radio (when you can get it on the radio), its all Redskins all the time. I used to have a lot of respect for John Riggins opinion when he was on the Sports Reporters on WTEM, but now he's nothing more than a Skins booster. Its pretty disgusting. The Wizards have been pretty good, as have the Capitals. Can anyone please tell me a better sports story than the Capitals this past season? And what about the Nationals? Where are they going to fit in?

The Sports Reporters show with Pollin and Czaban on WTEM has been the best thing on sports radio in DC for years. Redskins Radio is utterly unlistenable for us Skins fans, except for the ESPN radio. No way is Snyder going to allow the kind of criticism that Pollin and especially Czaban are capable of dishing out. It looks like my days of listening to sports talk radio in DC may be ending....