It’s a busy morning in the Boston sports media world.

We’ll lead off with thoughts for former WBZ and current CSNNE sports anchor Bob Neumeier, who suffered a stroke on Wednesday.

The news was broken by Michael Felger on yesterday’s edition of Felger and Mazz. Keep “Neumy” in your thoughts in the coming days.

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Glenn Ordway mentioned on his Big Show Unfiltered broadcast yesterday that WEEI.com baseball writer Alex Speier is heading to the Boston Globe.

While no official confirmation is in the offing at the moment, the move would be a tremendous addition for the Globe, as has been well documented here, I believe Speier is the single best baseball writer in this town.

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The Dennis and Callahan and Minihane show wrapped up their final simulcast on NESN this morning, marking the occasion by doing the show in full costume.

To replace Dennis and Callahan and Minihane, NESN will launch their own morning show – NESN Sports Update.

Baseball still a major draw on television – Chad Finn looks at the World Series ratings, and has a few other notes.

Get all your Patriots/Broncos news at PatriotsLinks.com.

The Bruins topped the Sabres last night, check out coverage at Bruinslinks.com.

The Celtics travel to Texas this weekend, check their stories at CelticsLinks.com.

Published by Bruce Allen

Automattician.

28 thoughts on “Thoughts For Neumy, Alex Speier To Globe?”

  1. If you’re searching for momentary enjoyment out of either of the morning shows you may find it in the fleeting moments of today’s D&C.

    I had WEEI on this morning around the end of the D&C just by happenstance. I don’t really enjoy, or listen to them at all. (I must have been listening to…Sunday Night Football last?) However Minihane must be dressed as Tony Mazz (YARM around here) as he was doing a pretty amusing takedown of the PERPETUALLY INCENSED 98.5 host.

    It was momentarily cathartic, with Minihane hitting on the sores that eventually drove me away from F&M in the afternoon: Mazz’s high-pitched squeal, his boring catch phrases “X needs it MOAR, than Y, MIKE”, and more.

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  3. As it was known already,

    ““NESN Sports Update,” which debuts Monday, is a 20-minute news and highlights program that will feature the network’s cast of anchors and reporters.”

    (via Finn)

    NBCSports Network tried this a few years ago in an identical form called “The ‘Lights”. It didn’t work. I guess its better than showing the Shaun T’s “Shakeology” or “The Shark” infomercials, but lets see how long that lasts.

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    1. Yeah, I remember NESN running something similar years ago before switching to the D&C simulcasts. I was never impressed with the morning show but I was very angry that the Sox-or-Bruins-in-2 were no longer running during my breakfast.

      I don’t think morning summary-type shows–rehashes of the previous night’s highlights–ever work well. Much as professional trolls like Skip Bayless fail to interest me, I do think ESPN is on to this much with their morning format: a show should present more than just quick snips of the previous night’s action to be interesting. Nothing too much in depth–folks tend to be heading out–but even a few small investigative looks or interviews about particular angles on a sport or a team. And NESN’s show doesn’t sound like that at all.

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      1. I don’t think morning summary-type shows–rehashes of the previous night’s highlights–ever work well.

        If you remember, when NBCSN launched it, it came with praise from everyone. Why? Well ESPN had started to really shift from highlights and basically shove the “First Take Debate”, even on SportsCenter. Why would you want to watch an hour of screaming when you have maybe 15-20 minutes in the morning and just want “The Lights?”. I thought it would work but, as the SBJ article pointed out, it struggled to even get 30k at times. You could argue that NBCSN suffered from some distribution, but even then it was in 75m homes (now I think its over 90M, or closer to ESPN/ESPN2). I remember reading that even during this time, your 5am and 6am reruns of SportsCenter, on ESPN or ESPN2, would still track in the 300-600k range. (That’s insane for the timeslot.)

        I’d love to know why it didn’t work. I used to watch it in the morning between breaks and liked it. They summarized everything nicely and it beat going to ESPN.com and surfing around. Maybe it suffered from the fact that so much is mobile and going online? When I ask friends how they get “highlights” or “news” it’s online online online, even if they don’t watch videos, but every modern phone can play the highlight reels.

        Yeah, if NESN takes their “well we show you all Boston Sports” but.. 25-50% of it is really focused on whatever NESN properties are out there (aka what NST is now), I don’t see how you even give yourself a shot there. I don’t view either highlight shows anymore, since I do what I just said above (online since its quick and fast).

        Maybe Bruce/Chad Finn can answer this: I remember F+M saying that they got 0.3s for the CSNNE simulcast. Based on that being in the afternoon, where I think more would watch, as opposed to listening via radio or stream, could you safely say that D&C got 0.1-0.3? Is there a pricepoint where a show could sustain itself? NESN, like every other simulcast, except Mike and Mike, went to a remote robocam operator. F+M does the same from the CSNNE Burlington studio but you could argue that they setup the radio studio to better accommodate a simulcast better. D+C had to put up that ‘wall’ with the silkscreen print, which they were all to happy to remove on Friday. Between paying the extra $ for the hosts on either show + paying someone, if its not just an intern making $10/hr, has to equal out to some price point where its more profitable to run infomercials or reruns of something other people watch. In addition, Ordway/Finn said that some of the decision also was with the “control of content”, which we all know NESN is notorious for (and their right). Simulcasts are so cheap to produce, but I have to think the biggest cost comes from the extra media rights to the hosts on the show. CBSSN even just gave Gotlieb a simulcast of his show, instead of reruns of Boomer & Carton.

        I have to think that if the simulcast did make them a nice profit, they’d have no problem keeping it on, but I have to think that it wasn’t a huge money maker, and the ‘control’ factor was the deciding factor.

        Anyone know?

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  4. Speier going to the Globe is interesting. WEEI has branded 98.5 as Boston Globe Radio, so now is he going to be an enemy?

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    1. Thought it would have happened sooner. It’s no secret he’s a favorite in town and “good”. Really, he’s too good to just be limited to working a regional radio station + online. At least with the Globe, he can do print + online (more exposure) + TV and probably still do radio. If/when he did leave, I figure ESPN or another big boy would have picked him up, but this is definitely one step closer.

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      1. I agree. Speier is probably the best baseball writer in the area. I just noticed that Felger shows him a tremendous amount of respect both on TV and even cites his articles on the radio. I could see F&M employing him for weekly hits like they do with Bedard. I just wonder if that could happen, and how WEEI would respond now that he’s gone to the Globe and could contribute on 98.5 like so many others.

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  5. Best wishes to Neumy for a full and speedy recovery. For my money, the Lobel / Neumy / Don “Ke” Shane WBZ lineup back in the day was the best sports team evah….

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    1. From SoSH, but a link to the radio call of famous 1975 fight. Many of us (me) weren’t even a wet dream then:

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  7. Great stuff from Mike Reiss as usual.

    http://espn.go.com/blog/boston/new-england-patriots/post/_/id/4771420/quick-hit-thoughts-around-nfl-patriots-34

    3. When including deferred money that will be paid out this year (e.g. part of Tom Brady, Jerod Mayo contracts, etc.), the Patriots’ cash spending in 2014 will be $124 million, according to ESPN.com’s Kevin Seifert.
    Meanwhile, the Broncos’ cash spending for 2014 is also $124 million,
    per Seifert. So when comparing the team-building approach of the two
    franchises, it comes back to a point I think is sometimes twisted in
    some talk-radio circles. It’s not that the Patriots don’t spend money.
    It’s how they spend it, and I think that’s the big difference
    between the teams. The Broncos, for better or worse, are more liberal in
    giving out big-money deals to unrestricted free agents from other
    teams.

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    1. Well, what do you expect Kraft’s son to write? (Hat Tip: Felger).
      Oh, and you’re a footie-pajama wearing fanboy for even repeating that “Foxboro Propaganda” here!!!!!!! (Hat Tip: Mazz).

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  8. Caught the end of a segment with Chatham on WEEI this morning around 10:00. He confirmed what I’d been saying for weeks. The detractors who are calling the Pats cheap for settling for Lafell (aka the “big-tall guy”) would be up in arms if Sanders were in NE with a bunch of similarly small wr’s and LaFell were in Denver with “other big tall guys.” He basically said, “certain people are always going to take the opposite side from what the franchise does, no matter what it is.” Their numbers are similar this year and they would be similar if they were in the other’s situation.

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  9. “Tony, you know, it was a win, but what did we really learn? The Broncos are just another Tomato Can that happens to not be in the AFC East. The fact they win changes nothing..”

    “YARM!!!!!!”

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    1. Boston Sports Media – Tomorrow’s Headlines Today:

      Pats Win, But Are They Peaking Too Soon?

      Pats Put Up 43, But Would Be Better With Emmanuel Sanders.

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  10. Late this week Felger was saying that this game would be a referendum on the Patriots’ roster building approach vs. the Broncos’ roster building approach. Getting ready for slamming the team to death after a loss about how Robert Kraft is cheap and the Broncos “going for it” is far superior to what the Pats have done.

    Oops, the Pats won. What can Felger do now? Say the game doesn’t matter because it was regular season? Blame it all on Manning throwing up all over himself instead of giving any credit to the players or coaching staff? One thing we know for sure that he won’t do, use this as a referendum on the Broncos’ roster building strategy. Even though he was all ready to do that with the Pats. Heck, he even admitted that he’d hate to see the Patriots style win out.

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    1. Actually Felger is being nice to the Pats on the postgame show right now. I wonder if the media will second guess Peyton Manning tomorrow like they did Brady after the Chiefs game.

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      1. Tuned in for about a minute of the Felger post game show on Comcast.

        Watched long enough to hear him asking if the Pats could win the rest of their games since that’s what they’ll need to do for home field, and if they can win the inevitable playoff game in Denver.

        Decided that one minute was already too much of my time wasted so went back to Pats Fifth Quarter.

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  11. Great win, but, let’s face it people: The Patriots just aren’t a good team anymore. The soothsayers on the Monday Night Football crew back in Week 4 declared that to be a fact. Personally, I was hoping that would become this year’s version of: “I want to make one thing perfectly clear. They hate their coach”. Things turned out pretty well for the Pats the year that Tom Jackson said those words one game into the season. To his credit, whatever guy on the MNF crew uttered the “they’re not a good team anymore” line at least waited until Week 4 to make a jackass out of himself.

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    1. Mark Bertrand has declared the “window closed” with respect to this team being able to win a championship.

      Gary Tanguay, after the Jets game, declared that this team won’t get any better. Last week after the blowout win against the Bears, he proclaimed that the Pats would go 1-4 in the next 5 games.

      Must be great to be a media member and be so monumentally wrong all the time while not having to face any consequences as a result!

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  12. Felger & The Echo 11/3/14 2:07 PM –

    Felger: This means NOTHING — the regular season is CRAP!

    The Talking Abortion: They SUCK, Mike!

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  13. Tomorrow’s talking points:

    PATS BLOW CHANCE AT SUPER BOWL BY PEAKING EARLY
    BYE WEEK MARKS END OF BRADY ERA IN FOXBORO
    BRONCOS HAVE OVERCONFIDENT PATS JUST WHERE THEY WANT THEM

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  14. F&YARM are going to do what they always do when they have nothing concrete to bitch about – they will fight with the audience. Felger is going to do his annoying as hell “Arrrrgh Felger! You were wrong!” voice at least 10x today. Mazz will feign anger and utter the phrase “it pisses me off, Mike…like, REALLY” whenever he’s forced to admit being wrong about something.

    That’s the way the show has been for the last month that the Patriots have been running roughshod over the league. Nothing substantial to be upset or concerned about? No problem. Make sh!t up and combat your audience.

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    1. Oh, and let’s not forget that the Logan Mankins trade still sucks and that we could have had Emmanuel Sanders. Expect those two tired narratives to get mentioned a couple times this week. Cause, ya know…they would have scored 60 w/ Sanders and Brady wouldn’t have gotten sacked by Ware if Mankins was on the line.

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