“You’ve got to get the Mets,” Ed Randall told his then-boss at 1050 ESPN Radio Tim McCarthy when the team’s radio broadcast rights were last negotiated.  “Whatever [the price] is, you’ve got to get the Mets.  That’s TWO HUNDRED days of programming.”

Team broadcast rights drive sports radio. They attract new and different listeners.  They fill countless hours of air time during a season.  And they provide stations an opportunity to build relationships with listeners by bookending them with team-focused pre-game and post-game shows with prominent station personalities.

Team broadcast rights “are an opportunity to get an audience who wouldn’t necessarily listen to sports radio,” said Mike Thompson, general manager of 1050 ESPN. 

Game broadcasts are most effective when a team starts a hot streak, said Bob Raissman, the New York Daily News sports media critic. “They can really give a station status and cache if a team is winning,” he said.

Although Thompson’s station lost out on landing the Mets to WFAN, he is hoping new deals with the Rangers, Knicks, Jets and other teams will attract new and old listeners to his spot on the dial.