more from Boston Radio Watch:
After months and months of negotiations with the Red Sox and what seemed to be a done deal three weeks ago, in a dramatic move Greater Media has withdrawn its bid to acquire ball club's radio rights thru an equity swap deal involving one of its five Boston FM signals and giving the team partial ownership of the FM station WBOS 92.9FM. It was widely acknowledged by those close to negotiations that the Braintree-based radio company had the lock on the deal.
Greater Media's market manager Phil Redo stated in a press release earlier this morning which announcing company's decision to pull the plug on an attempt to land one of the best sports brands in the country :
"There are times when the best deal is no deal. This morning, Greater Media has decided to end our negotiations with the Red Sox. After many months of discussion, in the final analysis it was simply not in the best interest of the company and the effort and mission we have as a cluster."
According to various media reports (The Herald, The Globe), Entercom will now retain the Sox rights, however, the games will move from the 12-year flagship WEEI-AM 850 to clustermate talker WRKO-AM 680. WEEI has been the Red Sox flagship station since 1995 season and is the top-rated stations in Boston in drive-time slots among males 18-54.
As reported in BRW recently(BRW 4/7), WEEI was the number one billing station in Boston in 2005 generating an estimated $45 million in revenues for its parent company Entercom.
Incidentally, like the Celtics last year, Sox are returning to a familiar frequency - WRKO was the Sox affiliate from 1986 thru 1988 and the team's flagship from 1989 thru 1994 seasons. The games shifted to WEEI beginning with the 1995 season when the two stations' then-parent company American Radio Systems shifted sports format from weaker AM 590 frequency to a stronger AM 850.
WRKO returned as the Celtics flagship this past season via a revenue sharing deal with the ball club. Unless something changes, the Sox deal means that the talk-sports station will now have play-by-play for four local sports teams - C's, Sox, Boston College football Eagles and New England Revolution.
This year's hotly-contested bidding war for the Sox radio rights wasn't anything like the team's previous low-key contract renewal in 2000. Although Greater Media was also very interested in having its then-new FM talker WTKK 96.9FM anchor the Sox games six years ago, but it was unable to work out a deal.
Just curious how the weather is up there in Boston right now, and how it looks for early evening. The Boston hourly forecast and radar look pretty bad on accuweather.com and intellicast.com, but I would imagine the front would move out of the Boston area sometime soon. Here in north-central CT, it's cool and overcast, but there's no rain.
We have tix for tonight's and tomorrow's Red Sox games, but are thinking of staying home for tonight's game - if it's even played. We'll lose $46 (2 bleacher seats) if the game is played, but we'll save $$ on gas, tolls, hotel, etc. We live about 100 miles from Boston...
Thanks in advance for any advice... :o)