Satellite radio is really far out
It's officially still the McGraw-Hill Building, but Sirius Satellite Radio has turned it into a modern-day Tower of Babel, a senior thesis in sociology come to life.SportsWatch visited recently, walking by Howard Stern's future studio and down the halls of the 36th floor, past the rap station, country station, gay station, right-wing station, left-wing station, Korean station and more to a corner of familiarity where people were talking sports.
There we found John Riggins holding court on football, and a hint at the heart of the mission: To help sports-oriented readers decide which, if either, major satellite service to subscribe to.
The answer, after much guidance from the very nice people assigned to assist clueless, "terrestrial radio" throwbacks in the print media: It depends what you're into.
The center of the sports universe for Sirius' 2.2 million listeners is football - play-by-play of every game plus a 24-hour station for NFL talk. At XM, with about 5 million listeners, it is baseball - play-by-play of every game, a 24-hour station for baseball talk and Derek Jeter as a spokesman.
Of course, those games and that talk ranges far from the Bronx, Queens and East Rutherford. So if you primarily focus on New York teams, WFAN and WEPN might be enough, saving the $12.95 per month both services charge plus equipment, which varies widely in options and price.
That is a gross simplification, though. Sirius and XM, based in Washington, each offer an array of news, talk, sports talk and commercial-free music options. Check their Web sites or your retailer for details. But even for sports, football and baseball only begin to describe the possibilities.
Right now, both services have the NHL, but as of 2007-08 only XM will. (XM already has a station for hockey talk.) Both carry the NBA, but Sirius has more games. Both carry college sports, so you see which has your favorite school. Sirius has the NCAA basketball tournament.
XM has the World Cup. Sirius has the Breeders' Cup. And so on.
Nationally, where local sports talk stations often are sophomoric, Sirius and XM can be saviors. What about here, though?
Steve Cohen, a former WFAN staffer who is Sirius' VP of sports programming, said Sirius does not aim to supplant WFAN. "We are looking to be a complement," he said. "WFAN is the finest all-sports radio station in the world."
Still, Cohen said Sirius can specialize in a way WFAN, where baseball is king, cannot. "It gives you a choice, just like cable TV," he said. "You had your nine, 10, 11 channels growing up, but now you have 150."
Eric Logan, XM's executive VP of programming, said XM chose baseball over the NFL because it is a better fit for radio and offers more live events. "The NFL is once-a-week, appointment-driven viewing," he said.
By 2007, when XM has the NHL exclusively, Logan said its number of live games will far surpass Sirius'. "One foundation about sports fans is they love live action, period," he said.
