Q on business of the WTKA roundtable
I hear It's all NIL bag too...
Good jokes on here but in all seriousness, my guess is that there is no money exchanged because both sides benefit for the reasons you pointed out: WTKA gets listeners that are fans of the blog/the blog promotes the segment and station, and the blog gets exposure and promotion on the radio from WTKA.
I won't speak for Brian or Seth---I assume what TrueBlue2003 does. I am not paid for being on the RT. Nor do I pay anything. Nor was I paid by WTKA during the 3 months I did the show by myself when it veered from sports to history and poetry and my car breaking down in Adrian. The issue of money has never been broached by me; nor has anyone else raised the issue. Truly, it doesn't seem relevant. I do make about $ 1,700 to $ 2,500 per year at sports writing, something that has no connection to the RT.
I do the show because it can be fun and I have come to consider Brian, Seth, Sam, Ira and (yes) Ed Feng to be good friends--lifelong friends I hope. I have met some fine people from the opportunity, Steve Clarke, Rich Reti (sp?), Greg Dooley (MVictors), Mark Dotson, Matt Misler and Mike Spath come to mind, among others. And two of my better friends, though 40-50 years younger than me, David Nasternak and Tony Kaminski. I get to buy Molson's for Alex Drain.
The people I have met because of the RT, the UM fans I have had a chance to interact with---even the ones who don't care for me---make me feel over compensated. And that's neither flip nor ironic. It is what I feel,
I look forward to the round table podcast every week. And while I miss Brian dismissing every comment that came out of Ed’s mouth, I think the chemistry with the current group is great.
Separately, I appreciate the specificity with which you quantified your sports writing earnings! I feel like I would have said “around $2,000” but after listening to you for years, I’m not surprised you put forth a more precise range. And that’s not a criticism or sarcasm, I just found it amusing when I read it.
I liked your victory lap for correctly starting Caleb Houstan couldn’t shoot last summer. I appreciate that you don’t just follow the narrative of the masses and form your own opinion.
Craig absolutely deserves that victory lap more than we can imagine! I know everybody was dismissing him last spring when he first said the shiny 5-star couldn't shoot and was an average player. It couldn't have been easy to buck the trend and stick with it, but he did. And he still doesn't get credit for it from Brian!
Thanks, you two.
I hope to be proven wrong by Caleb. I still think he has some significant upside. But I didn't think he would come in and kill it, or anything close. I think anyone on this board who watched his FIBA tournament would have had the same concerns I did.
I do try to form my own opinions but, alas, I have about a 50% hit rate with the outliers. Best case.
I have often said that most people on this board could do as well as I do on the RT. Some would do a lot better. This is a fact, not patronizing.
Craig, Thanks for chiming in. I'm been a fan of yours since I stumbled across "Obscene Diaries of a Michigan Fan" in Borders, and read it cover to cover in a few days. I love the random segues into history and other non-sports topics.
I don't know if you'll see this response, but here's an anecdote you might appreciate. I went to see Yale historian David Blight speak about his Frederick Douglass biography last summer. As I was in line to get my book signed the guy in front of me asked Blight about Bill Frieder, which I thought wasn't the most obvious thing to bring up to a Civil War historian from Yale. Anyway, it turned out that Blight and Frieder had a 50-year long connection dating from when Blight taught and Frieder coached at Flint Northern in the '70s.
Pete:
Thanks for this. I also knew Frieder and I have my share of Frieder stories, My wife and I played tennis against Frieder and his long-time friend Jim Carras several times. Carras, who was the golf coach at UM (Canham was cheap and never paid him) remains in AA and remains a friend.
Frieder was wacky and brilliant,
Mad respect for Alex Drain and his Molson habit
Craig, I loved your segments that summer. I was extremely disappointed that when the RT came back that your segment didn't continue in another time slot, though I understand that both your and Sam/Ira's time is valuable and can't just conform to my whims.
I actually made a board post about your segment from September 2020 in which you read Donald Hall's Love is Like Sounds. It remains my favorite TMI podcast segment, and I've been listening religiously for years now. You perfectly captured how I was feeling at the time and I know a lot of people agreed. That was a very melancholic time and it helped to know someone else was feeling what I was feeling
It's also beneficial for mgoblog to be good friends with Sam to be fed insider info.
No money is exchanged. They need to fill time, the exposure is valuable to us, and the friendship helps both parties do a better job of informing our audiences. It's a privilege to work with Sam and Ira.
I’m sure my memory isn’t perfect so the details won’t be either but I recall a gimmicky top five of things you don’t want generic types of and Brian mentioned Sam Webb. I thought that’s as a pretty cool testament to Sam’s character/ability/insight etc
Be careful. The last guy who asked this disappeared under mysterious circumstances.
More imporantly, I want to know what Brian was laughing about when recording the intro to the Roundtable podcast. Every time I hear it I wonder.
On this episode of MGoRadio: https://mgoblog.com/content/mgoradio-47-i-believe-ghosts
...wsg Carl Grapentine, we did a Gimmicky Top 5 of things we want Carl to say with the voice of Michigan Stadium. One of my five was to have Carl re-record the intro that Brian originally laid down in 2015 to go at the start of the pod version of the Roundtable. The way the bit worked was I handed Carl my list and he read them on my turns, so you're hearing Brian reacting to my selection.
I also had Carl record my voicemail, which I still use, and still have people call me asking if they can hear my voicemail.
Another was to have Carl name our sponsors, because Brian always forgot no matter how many times I reminded him and put a list in front of him right before we went live (and he'd forgotten).
When I was a kid, whenever a pro ball player appeared on a pre- or post-game radio show, they always made a big deal of them getting a free pair of shoes for participating.
Please tell Sam this. He has sweet shoes, and doesn't share.
My one thing is like to add is that hope Brian is doing ok. I know he’s been going through some personal stuff, but he’s definitely less engaged in the round table and his content here as dropped considerably.
Personally, I like the chippy dismissive Brian. I want more of him.
I feel like he's been a little more engaged recently as opposed to being on the roundtable last year and barely saying anything.
Not to my knowledge. No $ transactions. It is meant to an open discussion with varying views and commentary. No doubt that sometimes it gets political but they try to avoid going in that direction.
The thing to understand about talk radio, including sports talk radio, is that the stations no longer pay the talent. Instead, they pay the station for the airtime, and then need to get sponsors for the show. Limbaugh made this business model ubiquitous. If you ever listened to "Staudt on Sponsors" in the Lansing market, you would understand. What the shows do to get guests is on their own dime, not the station.