Buffalo Sports Media

You might be wondering why the hell is some guy living in NYC going to talk about the media coverage in Buffalo? Well for one, I use to be the sports intern at WGRZ and WGR and once you work or intern anywhere in media you can’t resist to look back and see how they are doing. The second reason is that I just can’t get enough of listening and reading coverage of the Bills and Sabres.

My must read material when I wake up in the morning is Buffalonews.com where I can read all the sports articles that will be published in the newspaper. Not to mention, Thursday and Friday at around noonish I get to chat with the columnists and ask them questions (and break balls) about the sports scene in Buffalo. And to top it off I get to read Sabres Edge which is something that a newspaper reader (that is one who buys the paper) can not do.

During mid-day around 3pm I then start listening to Schopp and The Bulldog on WGR. The amount of time I listen to WGR varies, if I’m not busy at work I’ll listen for about 45 minutes (Depending on the topic) and I always have the option to listen to them at 7pm when they have the best of WGR for that day. The other sports radio station in Buffalo is WECK Radio. Former WGR Host Brad Riter, has his own show where he does 1 hour of sports talk a day. I normally don’t listen to “Riter Radio” live, but he does post audio clips of his show on his website (He’s actually been lagging as of late in posting). Also there’s the team websites where I can get interviews and highlights of the teams dealings. Pretty much I can pull a Jay Mariotti and just sit on my ass at home and just blog my tail off with all the media outlets just a click away.

While Buffalo has a strong print and radio base, they severely lack in the TV aspect. Buffalo is the only two sport city that doesn’t have a sports TV affiliate in their area. Milwaukee has one and even Oklahoma is in the sporting TV business. I think it is safe to say that even with the Internet being as big with sports coverage, TV is still the top dog. I’ve read that the reasoning that Buffalo doesn’t have its own sports channel is that the market is too small. You would think though that some billionaire would try to unearth some of the ghosts of the Empire Sports Networks that was such a big hit in the late 90’s & early 2000’s.

I’ve also read that there is no need for a Buffalo sports affiliate, because most viewers are getting most of their sports programming from national TV outlets (ESPN, NHL Network). That is a crock. I’ve been in NYC for 7 years and I can count the amount of times the Sabres and Bills have been on PTI and Around the Horn on my left hand. ESPN doesn’t care about Buffalo. Once Chris Berman retires you’ll be lucky to get any sort of ESPN excitement on the air. NHL? God WGR has more hockey experts then they do. That is why I have to always check the Buffalo Media outlets. As of now the local TV Coverage has dwindled down to about 3-4 minutes on local sports cast. This is such a far cry from the 90’s when The Bills would be the opening to all newscasts on Sunday. I would always joke that if the president got shot on the same day the Bills won the Super Bowl, the President would have to wait until we heard from the President of the Bills.

During the next couple of days I will be giving reviews on each media outlet in Buffalo. Stay Tune.

Joey P
“if a guy owns a bunch of candles…its really OK”