Here is the release from Entercom:

Entercom Announces Kevin Graham to Lead WEEI as New Brand Manager

Graham Will Direct Entire WEEI Ecosystem from On-air, Online, Mobile, Red Sox Play-by-Play, and the WEEI Regional Sports Network

BOSTON, MA – Entercom Boston announced today that it has hired Kevin Graham to lead WEEI as their new Brand Manager. Graham comes to WEEI from 1320 KFAN in Salt Lake City, where he served as Program Director and afternoon drive co-host. Graham will begin work at WEEI in early September.

One of the original architects of 1320 KFAN, Kevin Graham went on to a successful programming career assembling and building sports stations in Columbus, Pittsburgh, ESPN Radio New York City, Detroit and Salt Lake City. He returned to KFAN again in 2012 to re-launch the station serving as Program Director and host of the Gunther and Graham afternoon show. Graham also has extensive experience in the digital sports arena assisting in building ArizonaSports.com in Phoenix and as the Founder/Editor of SportsMashup.com.

“WEEI is more than a radio station; it is an entire sports ecosystem. From our on-air talent to Red Sox play-by-play to WEEI.com, where we had 1.4 million unique visitors just last month, WEEI is a more complete sports brand than ever before,” said Entercom General Manager Jeff Brown. “We are thrilled to announce today that Kevin Graham will lead WEEI as our new Brand Manager. His background both in front of and behind the mic, along with his years of digital sports experience made him the best choice to lead WEEI. Kevin will bring a fresh perspective to the entire WEEI team and our complete package of digital sports assets.”

“I am honored and excited to join the WEEI team. WEEI is one of the most recognizable and powerful sports radio brands in the country,” said WEEI Brand Manager Kevin Graham. “With great resources, amazing talent, and one of the best digital brands in sports, the sky is the limit. I can’t wait to get started, especially with the Red Sox in the midst of such a great season.”

OK then. We’ll see if Graham can save the WEEI “ecosystem.”

Published by Bruce Allen

Automattician.

17 thoughts on “Entercom Announces Hiring of Kevin Graham as WEEI “Brand Manager””

  1. Hope Kevin Graham is bringing a life jacket. What kind of a boob would take a job with this sinking ship?

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    1. A guy who’s biggest claim to fame is an afternoon drive show in Salt Lake City – freakin’ Salt Lake City! What a joke! WEEI has become a walking punchline.

      Jeff Brown must have some very compromising pictures of Entercom’s top executives, otherwise I can’t understand how he’s kept his job and amassed such power after being the manager of another podunk market like Portland, OR.

      On another note, I see that Graham will be taking control of WEEI .com as well – does that mean Rob Bradford is out or demoted? I was under the impression that he was in charge of things WEEI.com after he basically built it out of nothing 6-7 years ago. If so, that’s too bad and I wonder what that means for the more established EEI writers like Chris Price, Speier, et al. (imagine they’ll keep around the younger, i.e. cheaper, contributors). The website is the one thing left under the WEEI brand I still have respect for and was actually hoping would be spun out into its own stand-alone entity among all the turmoil. I’m not the biggest fan of Bradford’s writing or on air appearances, but he deserves credit for building what was really a model for other sports stations to follow when it came to establishing an online presence. From what I’ve heard, it does quite well in terms of page views & ad revenue, at least for a regional sports site.

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  2. just the term, “Brand Manager” is a turn off…good luck, pal… While I enjoy keeping an eye on the sports media, the whole realm is dead to me. I guess it gets ratings, but people really listen to this stuff for more than 30 seconds at a time?…WOW!.. other than to hear what the next stupid thing they’ll say, I don’t see the point…

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    1. Dating myself here, but it reminds me of that old Doonesbury sequence where Mike Doonesbury was named Secretary of Symbolism.

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  3. Instead of blowing smoke up people’s skirts, just be honest and say WWEI WAS once the premier brand in sports talk and they are going to work hard to make it that again. Acknowledge the ship needs righting and go from there. Honesty works here. People in the market are well aware of what WEEI once was and what it currently is. So to just spew the usual cliches and act like nobody is non the wiser….c’mon.

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      1. I tend to see them being a bit more Dallas Cowboys, no?

        Arrogant owner who won’t delegate properly, was once the best and the greatest at which others were compared to and basically a doormat now, etc..

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        1. The Cowboys sell out their stadium and are wildly popular with their fans, though. That’s where the analogy breaks down completely….

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          1. My bad. I completely forgot about that. I guess you could say the same about the Jets, though, but I think we can safely attribute this to the NFL–and, not the team’s–popularity.

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          2. Yeah, maybe the Knicks would be a better analogy, at least during the Isiah years. And even then attendance was really good, because it was New York, and the Knicks. But you never know–the Lakers might be in the same boat as EEI!

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  5. Good to hear, although it will be interesting to see how they take to an outsider coming in and revamping the online “ecosystem”. I’d hate to see the site turned into some bastardized version of Bleacher Report for the sake of increasing page clicks. But would not be surprised based on Brown’s past moves and the tone of the above press release.

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    1. Yeah, if Graham’s smart he’ll leave the one part of the ecosystem that’s relatively healthy alone.

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  6. If they really want someone who truly understands how to build a brand, they should hire Chris Collins as a full-time host.

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  7. “…it is an entire sports ecosystem.” So, like, it’s the Amazon Rainforest of sports radio? Whoa dude.

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  8. graham sounds like another sports guy wearing a skirt–like bradford the chipmunk, speer, mutnansky, salk, holley–the whole lot of these “boys” have probably never played a minute of any real sport. these geeks dont want to get their skirts dirty so they just play fantasy sports.

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