PabloniusMonk

How will you be watching the Dallas Mavericks this season? 🏀 📺

We dusted off our old TiVo unit that's still connected to our attic antenna to be able to watch the Mavs' games this season. Having YouTube TV for almost 7 years now we had gotten used to not watching Texas Rangers, Dallas Mavericks, and Dallas Stars regular season games. This new OTA ("Over-the-Air") broadcasting deal closely matches the deal that the Phoenix Suns and Mercury came to with a Phoenix-area affiliate.

That was all well and good until we realized that the new "KFAA" on Channel 29 would not likely be available on YouTube TV. So I switched the source to "TiVo" and mercifully it is still working! (I suppose if it hadn't worked, we would've looked into getting a Tablo DVR or somesuch to replace it and have another way to record live OTA TV.)

McClearin spent time in college football-obsessed Alabama which he says is comparable to the Cowboys media frenzy in Dallas.

https://www.dallasnews.com/sports/2024/10/03/qa-with-the-tickets-matt-mcclearin-how-a-winding-radio-road-led-back-to-dallas-airwaves/

The Dumb Zone hosts, formerly at The Hang Zone, are getting into a groove they couldn't find on The Ticket.

"It seems that if The Dumb Zone is to eventually find its groove, it will be because of [Blake] Jones. Jones was McDowell and Kemp’s producer at The Ticket. He, too, left the station not long after his radio buddies did and joined the podcast crew just after the Cumulus lawsuit was settled. His on-air personality, mixed with his technical skill and ability to book a range of guests, was something the earliest Dumb Zone episodes lacked."

“It was merely to have a place for myself that was easily accessible to re-listen to funny segments from the station,” Ron said via email. “I’m in the web development/marketing industry, so throwing something together was simple. I thought that if I could just post funny segments, it would be easier to show friends and family whenever I talked about them. I was always referencing the Ticket. I still do to this day. The Ticket has warped my version of the English language, but in a hilarious way.”

Bob Sturm on taking pride in the station. "It’s a very rare thing in our business to be super proud of the jersey you wear because most people can't stop complaining about our industry and their company. We’re not at a perfect company, and it's definitely not a perfect industry, but there’s a sense of pride, and there always has been, on being able to wear this shirt. That’s an important thing that I think is worth saying is that to this day, I feel like even some who have made decisions to step out of the boat, they realize that they’re giving up something pretty special. I think that’s what motivates a lot of us to keep it going for as long as we can."

Sports Radio Giant 1310 The Ticket Celebrates 30 Years in North Texas

Long before ESPN turned into debate-all-day television, The Ticket developed a rebellious us-against-the-world type of radio that felt more like freeform pirate programming than it did something strictly formatted by a large corporation. Many of the station's youngest staff members even lived together in a frat house-type environment. Sure, sports was the primary focus from the start, but there was plenty of "guy stuff" banter regarding news and pop culture that would never dare be uttered on just about any other sports station in the country.

https://www.dallasnews.com/sports/2024/01/24/well-played-1310-the-ticket-shares-its-winning-formula-30-years-after-kickoff-in-dallas-radio/

The Little Ticket turns 30 years old today! Here is a glossy retrospective covering the station's history, its personalities, behind the scenes staff, and features Dallas Morning News illustrator Michael Hogue's sketches of the hosts, producers, tickers and the traffic reporter.

Why North Texas has a good chance to host the biggest game in soccer

Bob Sturm: Yeah, it's unbelievable, to be honest. certainly am familiar with Arlington, and am certainly familiar with the World Cup. The idea that they would ever merge and play the biggest sporting event in the world less than 15 minutes from where live is is absolutely bonkers to consider.

Radio host Corby Davidson agrees to 5-year deal to remain at The Ticket

Image description:
The Ticket's Corby Davidson has long, dark brown hair split in the middle, arms crossed speaking into a silver microphone suspended by a reticulated bracket during his show at The Ticket’s studio in Dallas, Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2023. In the photo he's wearing a navy blue hoodie jacket and a bright red T-shirt. Davidson announced he has a rare, benign brain tumor called an acoustic neuroma. (Elías Valverde II / Staff Photographer)

The Ticket’s Corby Davidson announced on Friday that he has signed a five-year deal to remain at the sportstalk radio station.

The host of “The Hardline” on 96.7 FM/1310 (KTCK-AM) took to Twitter/X with the news of the agreement.

“Thirty years ago I walked into the Ticket radio station as a kid, and I knew within about 5 seconds it’s where I wanted to be,” Davidson said in his post. “It was a magical place. The energy was off the charts. I was hooked.”

Davidson has been on the air for almost the entirety of the station’s run as the dominant figure in Dallas-Fort Worth sports talk. The Ticket is celebrating the 30th anniversary of its sign-on this month.

The station has recently lost Ticket stalwarts Norm Hitzges, who retired from the 10-noon slot he’d held for two decades, and “The Hang Zone” hosts Dan McDowell and Jake Kemp, who were ousted from the station after failed contract negotiations in 2023 and have since reinvented themselves in podcast/Patreon form.

Davidson though, who according to his post started at the station as an intern and eventually worked his way up to afternoon drive host, is there to stay.

Davidson closed his post by saying the deal with the station “[ensures] I will begin and end my work life there. Love my team, love our show, love that place.”

[photo taken from Junior's IG]

v. Retiree of the Week: Mike Fernandez, radio producer for the award-winning morning show “The Musers” on The Ticket in Dallas-Fort Worth for one month shy of 30 years, walked into the rest of his life on Dec. 1. For my money, I think Fernando (what everyone calls him) is the best sports radio producer I’ve ever dealt with. A breadth of topics—from digging deep into the Cowboys to the new J. Edgar Hoover book—found homes all over the morning show for hosts Craig Miller, George Dunham and Gordon Keith. That comes with arriving at work at midnight every weekday for 30 years (no wonder he wanted to retire) and poring over stories for the hidden gems way beneath the headlines. I was on the show for the past 12 autumns (Troy Aikman’s got me beat—he’s at 22 years), and I was always shocked to hear him reference some arcane note 8,400 words deep in one of my columns. But he knew. He read everything. He had the curious gene you have to have to be great in this business, and he was great.

w. Producers are the backbone of so many radio and TV shows in America. Good producers make good hosts great.

x. “Fernando’s a breed apart,” Aikman told me. “He was the standard. He engages. He’d text me a lot, and we’d have conversations about everything. You could tell why he was so valuable to the show. When I signed with ESPN, he sent me the big book about Monday Night Football, ‘Monday Night Mayhem.’ He just said, ‘I thought you’d enjoy reading it.’ He’ll definitely be missed. I talked to him on his last day, and I think he was most excited about getting on a regular sleep schedule.”

y. We should all appreciate people like Mike Fernandez. They make our sports experience so much better.

h/t to the Candyman 🎳 for sending me this Peter King snippet buried deep in the Football Morning in America post.