In fairness to the Texans, they had to do something to keep the fanbase engaged considering they're 4-5 and likely not going anywhere this season.
My sports radio listening peaked in the early 2000's and back then even for a middling Steve Franchise team there was tons of Rockets talk. Matt Jackson not being on Houston air anymore takes away one of the biggest NBA supporters.
It's frustrating, I agree. I cringed this morning when the show on 790 was ending and Adam said "We might talk Rockets tomorrow" or something like that because they were playing the Spurs tonight. With all that said, radio stations, like all media outlets, will run with what draws money. The majority of sports fans in this city are football only fans. It's just the reality. When stations talk Rockets too much they get hit up on the text lines complaining about it. It's lame, but it's reality. If more people would listen for Rockets talk, they'd do more of it.
I stopped listening a while back because of this. Its no fun to hear them rattle on about college and pro football, but that's just me. Plenty of podcasts to fill the void. Are there any Clutchfans podcasts out yet for this year?
Yeah, I'm also exclusively done with sports radio except for MAD RADIO on 610 during the lunch hour. The rest of it is pretty garbage for me. I've gotten more and more apathetic about the Texans and as such I'm not interested in listening to non stop Texans talk.
I take this to an extreme. I spent a year in outside sales constantly listening to sports radio. The constant football talk drove me insane and ruined the Texans for me. Now, I *love* when the Texans suck. I get a sadistic pleasure at hearing all the morons I work with trying to find silver linings in their lost season. Get over it boys, your team sucks.
The main issue is Lance. He is too pro football (a garbage sport) and his lack of NBA know how prevents him from talking Rockets or basketball. Adam clearly wants to speak but he is too beta and Lance dominates. PGS is a half assed sports show with little sports and lots of other drama, imitations, random BS stuff. ND and Greg, I never listen. All about the fake sport with limited skill and filled with off field drama. Matt T is another soap opera mixed in with some sports. Charlie P is the best pure sports talk show, although a bit repetitve at times. None of that BS extraneous. He talks plenty Rockets and his callers are more knowledgeable too.
Most of the city still can't watch the Rockets. I still haven't seen a game yet. I was busy during the Lakers game and I'll be busy tonight. But everybody can watch the Texans if they want. We'll see if things change when Root Houston gets off the ground.
Houston Sports talk radio is for people who want to talk about which bad quarterback should play for their bad football team. It's not for fans of basketball or any other sport. You always hear about Houston fans being fair-weather. But going into this season, the Texans were the worst team in the NFL and they had the second worst all-time record among current NFL teams. But the fans are fantastic. Just look at stickers on people's cars and if you look at merchandise that people wear. You'd never guess that Texans were such a bad team. "Texas is a football town" or "its less of a commitment to follow football" aside, what do the Rockets need to do to get some of that love? Or does it matter if TC is full most nights?
I know exactly what you mean. I feel the same way. I don't like to see Texans lose but I'm so sick of the non stop Texans talk, it's fun to hear all the bandwagon morons on the radio whining about why there favorite football team is not winning.
Lance likes basketball. I know you wish it were different, but the reason they don't talk about it is because the majority of the audience doesn't care. Charlie laments about it quite often that topics he'll talk about just aren't interesting to his audience and he jokes about not turning the channel because he's going to get back to football. The Rockets need to get on tv for the entire audience first of all and then they need to have a sustained run of excellence. It would also be helpful if the Texans moved to another city. That was a big boon to the Astros/Rockets attention.
Very true. Ever since Texans made the playoffs in 2011, it's be nonstop Texans talk all day, everyday. The bandwagon filled up so fast, I had no idea there were any real fans before 2011.
Understand about the TV deal. Root will be really helpful but people have also have broken the routine of watching games. Sustained excellence will also help in that it will raise the profile and will be the best possible PR, but i would also argue that sustained excellence doesn't really matter because the Texans as a franchise is the opposite of sustained excellence.
I listen to sports talk a majority of the time and I must say, even being the a Texans fan, the constant Texans talk does get a little old (understatement, I know). That being said, I also realize that I live in Texas were football is King. Along with that, the Texans are games are available to 100% of the viewing area, whereas the Rockets are only available to 40% at the moment, so the Rockets are mostly out of sight and out of mind. All that to say this, I think the Rockets talk will pick up after the Texans season dies down (the NFL never ends these days) and the whole CSN debacle is finally over later this month and more people are able to watch the Rockets.
"Texans are popular, so I root against them" That sounds as dumb as Houston fans cheering for the Spurs, but whatevs. Guess what, those "sucky" Texans have won more playoff rounds since their inception than the Rockets. I'm glad I like both sports/teams and don't have to stoop to cheering against my home teams.
Lance likes basketball, but admits that he doesn't have Comcast and doesn't watch many games period any more because they don't get that many calls about it. The problem is that it's kind of self full filling. You don't talk basketball 90%+ of the time, why would you have a bunch of basketball fans listening? Football would be more popular regardless, but obviously if you talk football 90% of the time the majority of your listeners are going to be primarily football fans. The other problem is that when they do talk about it there is next to no substance. Their "basketball talk" when it does happen tends to be so generic that even basketball fans would get bored. No mention of the Cavs losing another game to the Jazz, or any out of market matchups, surprise teams, or anything going on around the NBA. Not even a basic break down of the Rockets vs Spurs game or predictions on who they think will win and why. Their "basketball discussions" spend more time talking about how no one wants to talk basketball than they do actually discussing anything that is actually happening with the Rockets or any where else in the NBA. Then they blame the callers, when 75% of the callers are the same people every week and they haven't even introduced a specific topic for the callers to comment on.
60% of Houston can't even watch the Rockets right now and it's been that way for two years. When the issue with CSN first happened they used to talk about them more and give updates on what was going on with CSN. As time has gone on, the audience has cared less and less. The day after the court case was decided, Tad Brown was on with Adam Clanton and he didn't even ask him about it. Tad Brown had to bring it up himself as Adam was getting off the air. Why? Because the Rockets have disappeared from the sports consciousness for a large portion of the audience. They aren't the Astros, but they aren't the Texans either. The smaller the audience that views the games the smaller the audience that wants to talk about it on the radio. I promise you that if Adam and Lance did a test for a week that the results would show that the more they talk about the Rockets, the more listeners switch channels. Keep in mind that 790's ratings have gone UP after they've gone to the more football centric format that has Lance/Adam and In the Trenches. Matt Thomas isn't even a sports show host. He wants to be a game show host. He can't break down a game or give you any real insight.
Much like it's teams, Houston sports radio sucks. Caller-driven radio sucks. Radio callers period suck. It is what it is.
