Warriors Radio 'Game' Changer; Sports Media Notes; Monday Quick Start

SPORTS MEDIA NOTES MONDAY--

The Bay Area is basketball nirvana. Good for the Warriors to take center stage and capture the region with a bunch of terrific players and all nice guys too.

*When you win and become the center of attention, you tend to look at a lot of things...like media placement. The Warriors have never been thrilled with their 'little-sisters-of-the-poor'-status on KNBR. Being that the Giants control the entire KNBR/Cumulus 680 AM domain, the Warriors have been largely confined to 1050 AM, Knibber's sloppy second. Sunday night was a rare exception for the playoffs. But keep in mind the team is usually home this time of year and prime radio real estate hasn't been an issue. Hell, even the 49ers are OK with it and just re-upped with Knib for another 10 years. They acknowledge the station's 50,000-watt, (680 AM) power source and the fact, for better or worse, KNBR's sports brand, it's talk shows, mediocre or otherwise, help promote their clients. It's a winning combination. Ask the Giants.

That said, the Warriors, who have a billion-dollar new arena destined for the SF waterfront in about 5-6 years, (figure a decade), want their own radio schedule. They're done with being second and third-class convicts from the prison farm and their contract is up. (contract runs through 2015).

Enter 95.7 FM, 'The Game', Entercom's all-sports FM property with a cacophony of mostly empty talk show hosts but with a growing legion of sports fans who dread KNBR and are willing to listen to anything but the earwigs at 55 Hawthorne.

The Game is the flagship radio station of the Oakland A's and just got the Raiders. They don't have a particularly strong signal and in some parts of the Bay Area, you can't hear their air. But they have enough corporate juice and they're not the SF Giants and Larry Baer's kitchenette.

Enter the Warriors.

There's already enough schmoozing going on between the station's execs and Joe Lacoub and company, the new W's owners. Clearly the team wants its own home, more importantly, they want their brand to have its own identity and don't like being on 1050. It helps, too, that the Warriors are winning. Pro basketball has always been big here but now that the Golden ones are gracing the inner sanctum of TNT and Chuck Barkley land and ESPNville, all the more ammo for working for a deal to get better radio treatment.

*NOTES....

Tim Roye and Tom Tolbert have been superb on the Warriors radio broadcasts...Randy Hahn and Drew Remenda are the only reason I watch and listen to hockey.