Being a made man means not having to bite your tongue.
Jim Rome, whose status in the sports talk radio and television industry has been cemented for quite some time, lashed out at CBS Sports Network for pre-empting the final two hours of the daily simulcast of his program to air an International Swimming League competition on Thursday.
“‘You idiots are going to pre-empt this show for swimming?!'” Rome said, reading a viewer’s question incredulously. “Stupid. I can only control what I can control, and can only program what I can program … What I really can’t control is what the CBS Sports Network does during these hours, and I don’t have a problem with it. I don’t. They have other properties, other things they have in addition to the Jim Rome radio/TV show, including swimming.”
While Rome said he doesn’t have a problem with being pre-empted for swimming, it’s safe to conclude – based on his tone – that he has a problem with being pre-empted for swimming.
Jim Rome inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame. Getty Images for Radio Hall of FTV ratings are not available for CBS Sports Network, whose viewership is not publicly reported by Nielsen, so it is difficult to make any comparisons as to how swimming compares in audience to a typical Thursday of Rome.
What Rome, 57, has – along other top talents in the sports media space – is a viable stalking horse should creative or money issues ever arise with his program’s distributors. Sports gambling companies have flooded the marketplace with gushers of money, and have ambitions not just of sponsoring media content but originating it.
Penn National bought Barstool Sports. Trey Wingo, Kenny Mayne, and the Manning family are ambassadors for Caesars. DraftKings spent $50 million to sponsor Dan Le Batard and John Skipper’s Meadowlark Media.
Rome’s radio show is now sponsored by WynnBet, and it’s a safe bet that a number of sportsbooks would be in the market for streaming his program over-the-top should his simulcast deal with CBS Sports ever come to an end.
