Changes in Denver Media: They paved paradise and put up a Broncos parking lot

The Fan doesn’t owe you, the Denver sports fan, jack squat. It owes the station’s owners proof that they are bringing in good ratings to justify what I’d imagine are high dollar prices for ads running during its programs. And if justifying their existence to the people paying their salaries means they are going to cram nothing but Broncos news down your lousy throat, by God that’s what they will do.

Since The Fan has been the only game in town for the last few months, much was made about the station’s decision to jettison well-rounded talent and stick solely with Broncos based programming, which drew the ire of many sports fans around town.

With the Nuggets season in full swing, the Avalanche grinding out the last playoff spot in the west and the Rockies in the midst of Spring Training, the argument could be made that this was not the time to pull up stakes on the other professional teams in Denver and move to Dove Valley permanently.

But as lame and corporate as this move seems, this is nothing but good for you, the Denver sports consumer.

Radio stations don’t care about fans and the fact that you may want to hear what the Nuggets are up to. They care about money and what gets the most people listening to its station. They have to play the hits because the hits keep the lights on. But as they pave over more and more options for Denver sports fans, beautiful flowers are growing through the cracks and on the periphery.

ESPN is a wasteland. The Four Letter Network is nearly impossible to watch anymore and I think if it wasn’t for Monday Night Football, I wouldn’t watch it at all. NHL hockey is long gone from its programming and you’d be hard pressed to see anything other than the top NBA teams featured on its airwaves. They can’t risk having whatever dullards still watch ESPN tuning out just because they have no idea who Emmanuel Mudiay is. They’re playing what works and have been for some time. But ESPN is a sinking ship. A slowly sinking ship but going down nonetheless.

These massive sports media giants are slowly losing the war that daily publications have already lost and instead of diversifying and trying to get with the times, they have dug in deeper, planning to mine every last drop of money out of the current format before it becomes completely obsolete.

Newspapers, after being blindsided by the internet many years ago, are just now realizing it lost that war and are desperately trying to retain its readership like a bleeding man holding a napkin on his wound. Where are those readers and listeners going? Niche sports blogs and podcasts are picking up the slack where the major sports media has dropped the proverbial ball. Daily publications have been hit the hardest by this because now the writers can’t claim to be the only “boots on the ground” when a BSN Denver writer is sitting right next to them at a press conference.

The rise of niche online sports publications and podcasts dealing directly with a team or a city’s sports scene has slowly but surely taken hold in a direct reaction to juggernauts like ESPN, The Fan and the Denver Post. That’s why a station like The Fan is making a grave mistake in shedding young talent just to give sports fans what they think they want to hear because a large segment of that local team’s fan base won’t tune in anymore.

If we’re being honest, there hasn’t been much winning to talk about when it comes to the Nuggets, Avs and Rockies over the last few seasons and with the massive amount of transplants infesting Denver these days, it makes monetary sense for The Fan to stay away from those lukewarm topics. But there is a smart and diehard fan base for those teams and as more and more of those people realize there is no coverage on the local airwaves, by the time those teams are good again, those listeners will have moved on to news sources that are actually covering them. Just like Fox News, ESPN and The Fan will be stuck with an ancient, dwindling listenership that eventually won’t be around to scream about Obama or Mark Sanchez. Or both.

Denver is a great sports town and it certainly shouldn’t be defined by its popular, yet myopic number one radio station. It should be defined by its passionate fans and its many websites and podcasts dedicated to each and every sport. And while the selective information put forth by The Fan is alienating sports fans by the droves, it’s opening up a bigger and better world of sports media because it’s forcing fans to make the choice. Do you listen to the same old crap or do you go and find out what you need?

If you’re upset about something like The Fan, you’re not seeing the bigger picture. Radio stations like that are in the death throes of becoming obsolete. And as they flame out, a whole new world of sports coverage has sprung up around it. Like a flower growing through the cracks of that freshly paved parking lot, or like the kids in Footloose being allowed to dance for the first time.

Let the big guys shoot themselves in the foot, what’s happening despite them is truly a revolution.