Wee Eye

[Paul Hopfgarten]

I thought that as long as they're a certain distance from the Ball Park,
they can carry the ESPN feed...

WTSN carries the (hated) NY Yankees games, even when they're playing the
(beloved) Red Sox...

-Paul Hopfgarten
-Derry NH


-----Original Message-----
From: boston-radio-interest-bounces@tsornin.BostonRadio.org
[mailto:boston-radio-interest-bounces@tsornin.BostonRadio.org] On Behalf Of
Bob Nelson
Sent: Wednesday, August 22, 2007 10:30 AM
To: Dan Billings; Bill O'Neill; boston Radio Interest
Subject: Re: Wee Eye

>>In Maine, WEEI will replace national programming from ESPN so that 
will be a major improvement.  The Pats and Sox are of much more 
interest to the average Maine sports fan than college foorball, 
which will be getting major coverage on ESPN in the next few weeks.

True, though I do like the fact that ESPN can provide play by play
of baseball playoffs. What I'm wondering is, suppose you're in
the Portland area and the Big Jab stations have the rights to the Sox...
the Sox make the playoffs (if the season were to end today,
their first round opponents would be the Seattle Mariners
who currently lead the wild card). Yes, you'd get Sox playoff
coverage via the Sox network (Sox-Mariners), but would the new Nassau
stations that pick up WEEI be able to carry the games as well
via ESPN?

I don't know if these stations which are now affiliated with
ESPN would be ditching it totally--they may keep it for those
times when WEEI is carrying Sox or Celts, for example...and
that affiliation might come in handy for ESPN coverage of
various games.

Might ESPN offer affiliation to stations who would only
pick up games and not the talk shows?