Kirk Minihane and Bill Simmons discussed the state of Boston sports radio
Kirk Minihane and Bill Simmons discussed the state of sports media in Boston, the structure of sports talk radio, and the recent controversies involving WEEI on a podcast Tuesday.
In the past two weeks, WEEI hosts have been suspended for calling Tom Brady’s 5-year old daughter an “annoying little pissant” and using a racially stereotyped Asian accent to mock Brady’s agent, Don Yee. After several companies pulled their advertisements, the station released a statement Wednesday responding to the criticism. WEEI said it is suspending live programming for 12 hours on Friday so that all employees can attend mandatory sensitivity training, as well as reevaluating policies to “ensure that our programming is never intolerant or harmful.’
On The Bill Simmons Podcast, Simmons asked Minihane about the controversies (“Listen, I’ve been suspended five times in the past six years so I’m not really one to pass judgement”) and the structure of sports radio in general.
Minihane, co-host of ‘Kirk & Callahan’ on WEEI, said that the four-hour long morning show is mischaracterized as strictly a sports talk show. Minihane explained that he and his cohost, Gerry Callahan, focus on the issue of the day that sports fans are most likely to be talking about.
“We definitely tap into the anger and into the passion,”Minihane said.
Simmons, CEO of The Ringer and a Boston native, had criticized the local media for the string of controversies they’ve been involved in, tweeting Saturday, “The sports media has been embarrassing the city for 3 solid decades, it sucks.”
‘Kirk & Callahan’ regularly tops the morning-drive Nielson ratings, and the show’s star attributed the negativity on the station’s airwaves to the mood of the city itself.
“I don’t know if it’s the weather. I don’t know if it’s generational. I don’t know if it’s the Irish influence. I don’t know what it is,” Minihane said. “I’ve lived in California, I’ve lived in other places- this place is seeped in negativity. But I look at it as someone who lives here. I like it. I embrace it.”
Simmons suggested that the tone of Boston sports media shifted in 1990 with the response to Herald reporter Lisa Olson accusing several Patriots players of sexual harassment.
“It seems like these last 30 years have edged towards the negative in ways that I didn’t understand when I lived there and I don’t understand watching it from afar now,” Simmons said.
Minihane took issue with Simmons’s assertion that Boston sports media has taken a turn for the worse. He pointed to Simmons’s early columns for Digital City as examples of stories from yesteryear that were ‘plenty negative.’
“It’s always been inside people,” Minihane said. “I think now there’s just more outlets to be an asshole.”
It’s that abundance of outlets that has sports radio hosts fighting for listeners. As both alluded to, terrestrial radio is up against satellite radio and podcasts—not to mention the newspapers, sports-specific television channels, and infinite number of websites competing for a share of the New England market.
“It has to be local in Boston for it to work,” Minihane said. “There has to be some edge or whatever you want to call it. There has to be passion. There has to be disagreement.”
Simmons, who moved to Los Angeles over a decade ago, asked the WEEI host about the current Boston sports hierarchy. Minihane ranked the Patriots, Patriots rumors, and national writers attacking the Patriots as topics that matter more to his listeners than the Celtics, Red Sox, or Bruins.
Simmons said that he wants to take a spin as the rotating third host on ‘Kirk & Callahan,’ and suggested he shouldn’t have a problem clearing the bar for entry.
“In our show’s defense,” Minihane said. “It’s been almost two weeks since one of our casting couch members made fun of Brady’s kid. There’s something to be said for that right?”
