E-Sports Radio on AM?

What is this I'm hearing on 620 on a Sunday night? It's not ESPN, but a syndicated show on E-sports. Doesn't the braintrust at Arizona Sports realize that no one in the E-sports demographic listens to AM radio, and especially at night? Besides, the ESPN Radio audio on 98.7 is so bad I'd rather hear it on 620.

So I did some digging and it's a syndicated show called Checkpoint Radio. The primary syndicator is Beasley Media.

They have a weekly show and just started daily streams on Twitch. They've also piled up a few dozen affiliates.

This is the equivalent of a podcast on radio, at least in terms of the primary audience and distribution vehicle. Terrestrial radio, especially Ancient Modulation, is not the, ahem, checkpoint here.

This is a podcast network play by Beasley with a radio syndication operation. Station programmers probably see "esports" and think "young people", and it blinds them enough to give the show clearance.

I say this having been around the esports business and doing graphic design work for organizers of competitive tournaments and esports clubs. More homegrown coverage of esports is a good thing. I won't complain. But I feel like they might be investing a tad too much in terrestrial radio. You know, the type with actual towers and transmitters.

Also, on a completely unrelated note, it's weird to go to a radio site and see a logo you designed in a news story...

EricStein said:

What is this I'm hearing on 620 on a Sunday night? It's not ESPN, but a syndicated show on E-sports. Doesn't the braintrust at Arizona Sports realize that no one in the E-sports demographic listens to AM radio, and especially at night? Besides, the ESPN Radio audio on 98.7 is so bad I'd rather hear it on 620.

Click to expand...

Esports? You mean kids sitting on their brains, playing video games online with other kids who are sitting on their brains? This is considered a "sport" now? I thought sports required actual physical activity beyond moving one's fingers. And this gets coverage on radio, Ancient Modulation or not?

The planet is kaput. Now, get off my lawn!

KeithE4 said:

Esports? You mean kids sitting on their brains, playing video games online with other kids who are sitting on their brains? This is considered a "sport" now? I thought sports required actual physical activity beyond moving one's fingers. And this gets coverage on radio, Ancient Modulation or not?

The planet is kaput. Now, get off my lawn!

Click to expand...

I understand the appeal of esports from a participatory standpoint, or even as a topic of discussion, but why anyone would watch other people play them is beyond me. Yet nor only are there thriving websites devoted to showing esports competitions, ESPN is now televising them, mostly on ESPN+, the premium streaming service that launched back in the spring. Perhaps this is the only way for ESPN -- and, I'd imagine, the other sports networks, eventually -- to bring millennial eyeballs back to their platforms.

Back in the day (as I shift into codger mode) kids would hang out at the arcades for hours, playing pinball, at first, then video games. But watching the traditional televised sports -- baseball, football, basketball, hockey (in my part of the country) -- wasn't abandoned in favor of those amusements. The kids would finish their homework, then watch Monday Night Football or the Red Sox or Bruins game. Of course, nobody was televising pinball or video game tournaments, other than a couple of half-hour Saturday morning shows at the peak of the video game boom. Still, the idea that much of an entire generation would rather watch screenshots of someone else's gameplay than human athletic competition is bizarre.

Raymie said:

This is the equivalent of a podcast on radio, at least in terms of the primary audience and distribution vehicle. Terrestrial radio, especially Ancient Modulation, is not the, ahem, checkpoint here.

This is a podcast network play by Beasley with a radio syndication operation. Station programmers probably see "esports" and think "young people", and it blinds them enough to give the show clearance.

Click to expand...

This seems like 1980s radio programming strategy to me. Dedicate a weekend or late-night block to niche topics and try to sell time during that block to small businesses who could not otherwise afford to advertise on radio.

But in the brave new world of podcasting, I can hardly imagine this getting an audience. As KeithE4 and CT demonstrate, your typical sports radio fan doesn't "get" eSports, and the younger target audience isn't listening to AM radio at 10pm. And tbh, I'd rather be watching eSports than listening to a talk show about eSports if those are my options.

As far as CTlistener's assertion that this is "bizzarre": I was terrible at football as a kid. But I watch the NFL. I am terrible at first-person shooter games, so I sometimes watch what pro gamers can do.
I haven't really gotten into the competition aspect that eSports tournaments provide, but I totally get the concept.

I used to say the same thing about fantasy sports. It has gone from a bury it on a Sunday night thing to a mainstream topic in a few years. Give it time to grow.

PTBoardOp94 said:

As far as CTlistener's assertion that this is "bizzarre": I was terrible at football as a kid. But I watch the NFL. I am terrible at first-person shooter games, so I sometimes watch what pro gamers can do.

Click to expand...

I was terrible at all sports, never even gave most a try, but I've watched just about every one of them since childhood. I was decent at candlepin bowling -- a New England variant of the game -- and watched it as well when Boston TV used to carry it, but I was also a fair pinball player, and you couldn't have paid me to watch other people play on TV!