It’s no secret that the landscape of sports media continues to shift further towards streaming and away from television and radio. And on Wednesday, San Francisco Giants radio play-by-play broadcaster Dave Flemming painted a rather bleak picture for both KNBR 680, the radio home of the Giants, and all of sports radio entirely.
Over the last year, Cumulus, the parent company of KNBR, has undergone two rounds of layoffs that have drastically affected stations around the country, including the Bay Area. Most recently, KNBR parted ways with longtime afternoon drive radio host Tom Tolbert earlier this month, ending a 28-year tenure at the station.
KNBR’s partnership with the Giants is also set to expire after the 2025 season. So there is no guarantee that KNBR will even be the radio home of the Giants in the near future.
Flemming has been well aware of the changes at KNBR and the potential looming end of the KNBR-Giants partnership, voicing concern about the station and sports radio in baseball generally during an appearance on Roger Munter’s There R Giants podcast.
“I’m nervous and scared about the future of baseball radio,” Fleming said. “I think there’s always going to be a big market for audio baseball broadcasts. Baseball, I don’t think anybody would dispute, is the most friendly sport for radio broadcasts, and there’s just a huge chunk of our fans and baseball fans in general who get their baseball through radio-style broadcasts, however those are gonna be distributed in the future.
“It would be a really sad thing, for me, if that distribution left radio, actual terrestrial radio, and moved to something like — well, we’re watching the transition on the television side, too, from broadcast and cable to streaming. Radio is sort of following that.”
While some like ESPN’s Mike Greenberg seemingly believe that sports radio will be around “for a long time”, others like Flemming are far less optimistic.
The truth is probably somewhere in the middle. Sports radio will likely continue a slow and lengthy decline as has been the case for years now. But clearly in baseball, especially when it comes to the Giants, radio will be something to keep an eye on moving forward.
[There R Giants podcast on Substack]
