I don’t know if there is crying in football, but I do know there’s a lot of whining and belly-aching. Forget national pastime, football is king in Chicago and beyond. While I don’t put a lot of faith in radio call-in shows as to the specific climate surrounding a team, they do allow fans to interact immediately after a game. Radio hosts, when they allow fans to call, offer immediate feedback whereas the suits on television are just spewing word salad. For the past twenty years or so, no TV postgame show in a major market has had the guts to take calls. They are paying their talent too much money to not hear them bloviate.
Neither of the two local baseball teams spend much time taking calls after any of their games. That was so 2006. However, local radio stations devote hours postgame after every Bears game-even if they aren’t carrying the game.
After today’s Packers 20-Bears 19 game, three local stations allowed callers (to different degrees) to vent their frustrations. Luckly, in Greater Chicago, listeners can get a different perspective WTMJ 620AM has a strong enough signal. By my count, 6+ former NFL players were opining after the game today. To listen to fans on both sides of the fence, it was impossible to tell who won the game. For the most part, Packer fans were irate because they barely beat a horrible team and didn’t have anything good to say about the defense. Bears fans, torches in hands are ready to launch the head coach but see promise in the quarterback. It was pretty humorous, and I only wish local baseball fans were allowed to exorcize demons following every regular season game (we don’t do playoff baseball in these parts any longer).
The only way the Bears were going to win this game 22-20 is if it were a Lifetime Channel or Hallmark Channel production. The other great thing about radio is the immediacy with which one can change channels and get context. Other than the fauxcasts out there, there’s only one TV call, and postgame (TV) channel surfing for postgame local coverage is impossible and futile, unless you want to see car commercials.
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