Thursday, November 3, 2011

Flash: Urban out at Comcast SportsNet Bay Area; RL 415 Media Exclusive; UPDATE



Mychael Urban is out as a Giants and MLB Insider at Comcast SportsNet Bay Area, according to a source familiar with the cable outlet.

Urban, a past writer for MLB and a contributor to KNBR, had been with Comcast since 2010.

No official word on why Urban has been let go, but we'll be on it.

UPDATE: Initial word from a source: Urban may be invited back to Comcast in a future date in some, as yet, undesignated capacity. His contract was simply "not renewed."

Again, we will check for specifics.

UPDATE 2: Source: They, (Comcast), had "personality/content", differences with him, (Urban). Maybe too much "Inside Zito?", (among other things). Maybe, we're still checking. Stay tuned.

Here's the official statement from Comcast:"Mychael Urban is no longer employed with Comcast SportsNet. We appreciate his contributions over the last few years and we wish him well.”

How poignant.




'RL 415 Media' Exclusive

*Follow me on Twitter

*Developing Story...

48 comments:

  1. Maybe it goes back to when he was sympathetic to dream-destroyer and career minor-leaguer Scott Cousins's cheap shot on Buster Posey that may have ruined Buster's career. In the days after the tragic injury, he kept going on and on about it being a clean play. Maybe the G'ints got tired of hearing about that from the formerly one-earring'd bloviator and told Comcast to make him go away.

    ReplyDelete
  2. The long arm of KNBR-influence squashes Urbs?

    Warning shot across the bow chills many, I betcha...the result of perceived disloyalty?

    Stay tuned!

    ReplyDelete
  3. He should have never left KNBR. KNBR owns a piece of the Giants. The Giants own a piece of CSN bay area. Full circle?

    He is now left only at the Game for a few days a week whose ratings seem to remain stagnent at .8 for 3 months, which after heavy advertising (including planes, radio, tv, billboards), is not making must of a dent as they thought.

    ReplyDelete
  4. oh whatever. posey was blocking the plate. cry about it some more. that would be a typical gnats/knbr type move to silence dissent. maybe he's taking a new job with 95.7 the game.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Jeez.....people who never played sports still whining about the Posey injury......

    ReplyDelete
  6. Was he fired because of gay discrimination? I don't know if he's gay, but come on, a single diamond stud earring? Do the math. Get a laywer Michael!

    ReplyDelete
  7. This has KNBR vendetta written all over it. The station that replaced his show with Pecon "the south will rise again",man and his Saloon Show is doing its best to punish all it feels is for the other team in town-THEGAME.
    Urban isn't the best..but he isn't Pecon or Kreuger or Fitz, Brooky, and Burnzee's bad either.

    It might be time for Urban to break the mold,burn the KNBR bridge and cut loose at 95.7
    The chimp had some hand in this,some way-again...And Happy Thanksgiving, sucker!

    Hell,if 95.7 had a brain,they would pair Urban and Dibbs with Townsend..all of whom play Nirvana's "rape me" when KNBR is mentioned.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Thank Goodness! Worst broadcaster associated with the Giants since the horrible Joe Angel. I think it was easy for the players to see through Urban's jock-sniffer deceptiveness, and he fancied himself as an insider when the players and announcers really mocked him behind his back. He was a know-it-all who knew rather little about the ins and outs of baseball. The earring? Dude, you are out of high school - grow upI hope this guy moves to another market waaaaay out of the Bay Area - Baltimore, are you ready to take this hack, too?

    ReplyDelete
  9. HI MOM!

    i'm on the internet!

    ReplyDelete
  10. "Big Urbs" is gettin' fired all over the place.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Maybe his pal Zito will keep him on the payroll

    ReplyDelete
  12. Sports Saloon is off the Chain! Those guys are killing the "GAME".
    Pecon is entertaining and they have better guests than 95.7

    ReplyDelete
  13. Seems fair.

    His "scoops" were only accurate some of the time, and his analysis was pedestrian. As a pregame show guy, he's fine. But Comcast can do a lot better for an "insider." Like, for instance, someone with "inside" connections.

    ReplyDelete
  14. That's too bad, I always liked his pre and post-game stuff on KNBR. He suffered through some bad years on the Giants, then got booted as soon as they hit the big time. I wish him well wherever he ends up.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Perhaps it was his alleged boozing, weed smoking, and womanizing?

    ReplyDelete
  16. I wish to retract my 12:00 comment about Michael being gay. The other day he mentioned on 95.7 that when he was in high school he got a Perm in order to impress an attractive girl who was a Jehovah's Witness. Wait a minute ... can I retract my retraction?

    ReplyDelete
  17. Blessing in disguise, Giants will now suffer the curse of the Urbino and won't win the World Series for another 100 years. A's will reign supreme in the Bay, and let's not forget, Urban was an Oakland castoff.

    ReplyDelete
  18. This guy keeps getting bounced around. Maybe it isn't the long arm of the Giants but maybe Urbs himself? Maybe he's got the Damon Bruce Guide to How to Get Along with Co-Workers? I like Urban in small doses but I get the impression he's pushing for a full time gig with a chip on his shoulder.

    The guy always reminds me of Judge Reinhold from FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH. Perhaps he should do what that character did after losing a job: go home and whack off to Phoebe Cates with The Cars playing in the background.

    ReplyDelete
  19. I think Mark Purdy blew away all that "Insider" bullshit.
    So,Urban's differences with Comcast must be he was like Bambi to KNBR's revenge. Other's like Ratto and of course the untouchable one himself-Greg Pappa have nothing to worry about. Ann Killion is on the KNBR payroll too since she's Damon Bruce's mature love.
    I really think big Mike was an easy target...a statement from KNBR/Giants.

    ReplyDelete
  20. It was reported that his earlobes are way too large for HD

    ReplyDelete
  21. He was a good analyst of the Giants and MLB in general though. I liked him. He knew his stuff unlike a lot of the others on local TV like Radnich lol. Think it is a bad decision and the Giants' fans liked him too. He wasn't hated on like Amy G or others.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Now we just need Bip Roberts and Amy G to go... Those two are god awful. Urban was terrible too.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Wouldnt being married get in the way of being gay and womanizing?

    ReplyDelete
  24. Urban was boring, he knew his stuff but could not articulate it in a compelling way...think Bob Fitzgerald lite.

    ReplyDelete
  25. Urbans head shot scared me when I clicked on the link. WoW....

    Bochy-esque

    ReplyDelete
  26. @ 1239 who said Sports Saloon is off the Chain! Those guys are killing the "GAME".
    Pecon is entertaining and they have better guests than 95.7

    ---Are YOU kidding me? Patrick Connor is a gutter punk who smokes, hacks Loogies and belittles women of all ages by his double entendres regarding getting broads in the sack or the size of their rack. At best he sounds like Barbieri's little brother.

    How can ANYONE listen to people who Speak like Connors, Byrnes, Barbieri over the radio. Listen to how professional people speak over the radion like Ted Robinson, Bruce McGowan and even the way that FP spoke when he was on KNBR. Shouting, slurring....ah, ah, ah, and Byrnes taking one syllable words like "one" and "my" and elongating them out like 4 syllable words is disgusting. Come on, Eric, this is Texas where they say "I'm going to the GeeeeeeImmmmm to work out"

    ReplyDelete
  27. Amy G has replaced Urban.
    Source: Bill Neukom

    Stanley Roberts just caught Urban near the GG bridge, but all is okay now.

    ReplyDelete
  28. I cannot stand to listen to KNBR between 6-3 M-F (12-2 is the worst listenable time-frame) and after 7pm

    95.7 is much more refreshing than the nonsense KNBR pushes....I believe KNBR is so dedicated to single topics that they are going way of Maury povich looking for who is my baby's daddy or Nancy Grace's version of lets follow the same story for months everyday.

    95.7 I hope gets higher ratings cause its so refreshing to listen to different options

    ReplyDelete
  29. He had several health problems that you'd expect from a guy much older than him. He's had blood clots in his legs and a gall bladder surgery. It's a blessing to be fired from Comcast and he should be grateful to spend more time with his family. If he can find a gig that pays and doesn't require as much time away from his little daughters he's better off.

    ReplyDelete
  30. Who cares? They'll replace a white guy with another white guy and ace out yet another "minority" or local who's a lot more deserving than your vanilla from out of state, truth be told, you don't like it, then don't read it. ciao

    ReplyDelete
  31. I dont see Update 2 having much cred.

    Urban has put a lid on his Zito love many many months ago.

    ReplyDelete
  32. Urban took his ear ring out about one year ago.

    Update your photo. His worst attempt was Father Knows Best with Chris Lincecum and that Unicorn Hour out on the Patio.

    ReplyDelete
  33. Living in SoFla and predate Urban but he can't be worse than Steve Physioc? Pleaseeee...

    ReplyDelete
  34. He is a big bag of wind. If we could make sure he is no longer on 95.7 we would be so much better off. He is horrible.

    ReplyDelete
  35. The downhill slide started when he changed the spelling of his name to Mychael...

    ReplyDelete
  36. Until this morning, I followed Urban on twitter. But all the guy ever posted about was "follow me" or "follow this other guy". He cared more about promoting himself and accumulating followers than he did about providing information. I finally had enough of it this morning and unfollowed him. I guess I wasn't the only one tired of him?

    ReplyDelete
  37. I knew Urban at Woodside High, Canada College and USF.

    Wasn't it always Mychael? I think it was. His dad is Doctor Hal Urban, well known and very, very well respected.

    ReplyDelete
  38. "KNBR sucks!"

    - the whole bay area

    ReplyDelete
  39. Here is what P-Con said last week to Brian Murphy on the radio. "I was watching the World Series sitting on the couch. smoking a cigerrtae with my wife beater shirt on and with only my socks on when my female neighbor walk in" Not a pretty site considering P Con is a little heavey. Radio at its best

    ReplyDelete
  40. I didn't like Urban much on KNBR when he was kissing Zito's tush, but he gave that up. I don't really have an opinion on him now one way or another, he seemed to be getting better recently on the radio on 95.7 once a week. I guess he's still there? I would take him over listening to Byrnes. He is absolutely horrid, even worse than FP, and I thought he was the worst. Byrnes is so bad, I turn the radio to 95.7 when he's on, and listen to Townsend (and he sucks). The battle of suckage, and Byrnes wins...

    ReplyDelete
  41. You post other peoples comments and this is the second time u didnt post mine you say people dont use there name well I did !

    ReplyDelete
  42. I have a feeling he's not the only one who's going to be let go by CSNBA/CSN. The website is now mostly written "by staff writers." They're probably in cost-cutting mode. They also have simplified the website. Like a lot of other sites, they re-designed to make it easier for smartphones and tablets to navigate, but that also means they cut back on amount of content to make it less cluttered (so a writer like Mychael is cut to save space).

    As for the TV side of it, they had way too many people on the air this year. They seemed to add even more on-air staff after the Giants won the World Series the season before. I couldn't even keep up with them all. KNBR people, ex jocks, etc. Since the Giants didn't make the play-offs this year, there's less incentive to do too much coverage going into next season. I'm sure at least some of the ex-jocks may be going away. I'm not sure any of them were on contracts though, so it might not be announced.

    ReplyDelete
  43. "Mitch said...
    Blessing in disguise, Giants will now suffer the curse of the Urbino and won't win the World Series for another 100 years. A's will reign supreme in the Bay, and let's not forget, Urban was an Oakland castoff."


    Dude! Type that shit up BEFORE you burn one, okay??

    I'm not an A's-Hater. I like both teams. But the A's might just sink even lower if the scenario Chris Townsend presented happens. Basically, they let all their talent go (or really don't resign them), don't spend any money until the San Jose rights thing is resolved (and in the Giants' and Selig's eyes, it already is!), and just pocket that revenue-sharing money (West Coast Version of the Pirates and Royals).

    If the team gets sold, the team gets moved out of the Bay. And, of course, the few diehard A's fans get screwed again!!

    And if the A's are gone, what's going to prop up The Game and any competition to KNBR?

    ReplyDelete
  44. Q: "Wouldn't being married get in the way of being gay and womanizing?"

    A: No and No.

    ReplyDelete
  45. @ Was he fired because of gay discrimination? I don't know if he's gay, but come on, a single diamond stud earring? Do the math. Get a laywer Michael! November 3, 2011 12:00 PM

    Are YOU serious? More straight guys wear ear gear than do their gay bretheran!

    ReplyDelete
  46. 1133 is generally right-but arent the A's just a welfare revenue sharing team right now? I dont see them outbidding anybody for anybody. What gets me is the local press and city officials should be scorching Beane,Wolff and the Fisher familt for threats like that..even hinting at that should be cause for howls of anger.
    Beane's smarmy ways gets his ass kissed by 95.7,Monte Poole,Raddy..Slusser and Kawakami. And many others. What gutless wonders media they can be.

    ReplyDelete
  47. Jeez, a lot of punk ass comments here. I wasn't a fan of the guy, but give him a break. To some of the snide A-holes I would love to come to your job as you're fired and mock your ass. None of you would have the balls to say this stuff to his face.

    ReplyDelete