Friday Four-Pack 12.27.24

98.5 The Sports Hub wins another ratings book. The biggest Boston sports story heading into 2025. Media notes, predictions and NFL Picks...and it's the 100th Friday Four-Pack!

Dec 27, 2024

Last week was Friday Four-Pack #99, making this Four-Pack #100

A trivial milestone for sure, but today marks the 100th consecutive week I’ve published the Friday Four-Pack here at MutStack.com. That means you’re reading the 100th edition of a newsletter spawned from my firing from WEEI after 17 years.

It was an interesting year.

Kept the newsletter going into Year 2, never missing a Friday. Kept the Ripkenesque streak of grammatical errors going, as well.

Emceed some great events and worked with some terrific people across New England.

Got shingles for Easter. 0 out of 10, would not recommend.

Helped launch a live, weekly show at Mohegan Sun’s beautiful sportsbook.

Spiraled a bit when technical issues (among other things I should have foreseen) impaired the show from the start.

Got to spend more time with my good friend on his wildly popular podcast, including performing at his sold-out live show.

Was banned from that same podcast for a year…by a listener & contest winner.

Coached my boys in baseball, flag football, and basketball. They’re learning to tune me out at home AND on the field/court.

Was part of an 0-6 men’s league basketball team that featured the best announcing crew in the business.

Picked a winner for the boys on Barstool Sports’ excellent Travers’ Day broadcast live from Saratoga.

Didn’t pick many winners, but was happy to be back at Parx handicapping the PA Derby Day card for their simulcast show.

Made the mistake of leaving my camera on after yelling at Kirk, Ryan, and Dave on The Unnamed Show. Another 0 out of 10, would not recommend.

2024 was…certainly something for your humble newsletter author.

When I started out in New Hampshire radio - both on the air and selling advertising packages - I had a boss who would use an old football analogy about both.

“You don’t want to leave points on the field.”

I can’t help but feel I did that this year. Mistakes and missed opportunities, for sure.

As for 2025, I have some ideas about how the content you get here might evolve, but no official predictions. Or announcements.

Just a sincere thank you to everyone who read, skimmed, subscribed, or shared the newsletter this year. Or commented below. Or supported my work through partnerships. Or even harassed me on X.com about whether it was really a Three-Pack or a Four-Pack this week.

I love you all.

Meanwhile, some important things to get to. Like the Fall 2024 Boston Sports Radio ratings. And a big few months ahead for the Patriots. And the national media not crediting MutStack.com for breaking real news.

Like I said, the important things.

All ahead in today’s Four-Pack. Thanks for reading.

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On a review of the fall ratings for Boston Sports Radio…

📻 Fall Radio Ratings courtesy of X.com posts from Boston Radio Watch. Note the Fall 2024 Ratings (September 12 - December 4) are in the far left column. You can see the 2024 radio “season” going left to right from Fall 2024 to Winter 2024. Chart courtesy of MutStack.com.

📝 From our December 6th Friday Four-Pack:

A few weeks from now on the day after Christmas, we’ll get the ratings for those 12 weeks (of the fall radio book in Boston). As it relates to sports radio in Boston, 98.5 The Sports Hub will win the book convincingly among the sports radio target demo of Men25-54. WEEI’s The Greg Hill Show will again finish second among M25-54 in morning drive. Jones & Keefe will show a notable improvement in middays over the show they replaced (Gresh and Fauria), but still finish well behind The Hub’s Zolak and Bertrand.

In afternoon drive, Felger & Mazz will win and win big. Their main competition - The WEEI Afternoon Show - has had weekly ratings registering in the 1s among M25-54. Joe Murray’s solo show will also win big at night.
More on this when we get the full fall ratings, but with the shockingly low recent weeklies, it does feel like WEEI decided to essentially punt off afternoons and nights for the fall…which seems CRAZY during football season in a market like Boston.

If you’re a regular reader, the ratings released on Thursday (see the chart above) were not surprising. At all.

The juiciest Boston Sports media headline of 2024 was Rich Shertenlieb returning to Boston Radio. He left one of the most successful shows in the market in Toucher and Rich at the end of 2023. He returned this spring as the morning show host at Classic Rock 100.7 WZLX. His flameout and eventual firing after less than six months at WZLX is a wild radio tale.

You had Rich fighting with management as they added music back to his show. Yes, the show’s ratings were so bad management started adding 3-4 songs per hour back to what was launched as a morning talk show on an all-music station.

You had his former co-host, Fred Toucher, continuing to take shots at him and make all sorts of claims about Rich’s time at The Sports Hub. Of course, you had Fred taunting Rich as his new show burst into flames. And finally, you had iHeart Radio fire Rich - while also telling his co-hosts they might be interested in bringing them back in some form after the New Year.

And while all this drama is going on Fred Toucher - along with Rob “Hardy” Poole - just kept cranking along like nothing ever happened. Their 21.7 share for the Fall of 2024 is about a 25% increase over last fall for the show. Yes, rival The Greg Hill Show on WEEI jumped up from a 10.2 last fall. But Toucher and Hardy were able to maintain the 7-point lead they had at that time. Despite their success, WEEI could not gain any ground year-to-year on the No. 1 morning show in the market Men25-54.

Toucher’s ability to not just maintain but grow the audience after the departure of Shertenlieb is not as sexy a story as Rich’s failure at WZLX, but it might actually be the bigger story.

Other assorted thoughts from the Fall ratings—

A year ago at this time, one radio insider I talked to said of the blowout ratings loss WEEI was handed by The Sports Hub, “The worst I’ve ever seen.” Year-to-year, WEEI cut the overall deficit from 11.9 to 9.6 points overall. They went from 7th a year ago to 4th in 2024, among Men25-54.
As predicted here, a big part of the jump comes thanks to middays, where Jones and Keefe more than doubled the 2.4 rating Gresh and Fauria registered in the summer. I’ve heard the criticism of Jones and Keefe that they’re “too jokey,” but if you have functioning ears and a brain that works, you’ll realize it’s a much better show than its predecessor in about 10 seconds. They’re helping to keep that morning show audience longer and it’s helped WEEI.
But I’ll ask here for the 37th time - what took Audacy’s Mike Thomas so long to realize his moves to retool the station at the end of 2022 did not work? He let the station crater for 18 months before he finally paired Jones and Keefe and moved on from Gresh and Fauria.
What’s not helping WEEI is anything after 2 PM. WEEI’s Thomas is getting what he deserves for punting off afternoon drive and nights. The WEEI Afternoon Show (with Christian Arcand and Andy Hart) continues to sound like a placeholder until Thomas and Audacy can figure out what’s next. Just looking at combined raw numbers, the 2 PM - 10 PM window actually went down from summer to fall on WEEI, thanks in large part to the 1.4 at nights. The Hub’s Felger and Mazz cruise to another ratings bonus while Joe Murray + Bruins + Celtics go unopposed at night for The Hub. Again.
In the Fall of 2022, the 2 PM - 10 PM window on WEEI did a combined raw number of 15.1. In the Fall of 2024, that combined number was 3.9.
Boston Radio Watch pointed out that the ratings for Rich’s show on WZLX were getting better after they added music, and that they might have cut Rich loose too soon. The problem, of course, is that Rich hated the music according to people I talked to around the show. He fought management when they added it back. Now with music and Rich’s former producer Kenny Young in mornings, they’ve almost doubled their rating from the summer.

There will be talk of WEEI having a little momentum heading into 2025. But if the last few years are any indication, the end of the football season will hurt them much more than the Sports Hub: the built-in audience for the Celtics and Bruins broadcasts is a huge help for 98.5 And unless there is a major shakeup, the 2025 ratings will look a lot like 2024.

WEEI’s next move will be figuring out what to do in the afternoons. They’ve already swung and missed with The Boston Globe’s (and 98.5 The Sports Hub’s) Chris Gasper. Shertenlieb was considered a year ago, as we wrote at the time. I’m not sure he makes sense now unless he takes a huge pay cut for this former boss Mike Thomas.

A big factor will be Audacy's finances and new majority shareholder George Soros. The Democratic mega-donor helped bail Audacy out of bankruptcy, and industry insiders wonder what this might mean for the company heading into 2025. It’s a wild card, for sure.

Expect any moves to happen in March before the start of the Red Sox season.

Some quick Boston media predictions for 2025 are below in the media notes.

On the biggest story in Boston sports heading into 2025…

With all due respect to the Boston Celtics and their dominating season en route to the NBA Championship, the biggest story of 2024 was your New England Patriots.

Fired Bill Belichick. Hired Jerod Mayo. Drafted Drake Maye. NFL > NBA.

They remain the biggest story heading into the New Year. Because they have the right quarterback in Maye: now they have to make sure they don eff it up.

And I have no confidence that they won’t.

Maye looks legit. His combination of physical skills and poise (on and off the field) make him look like a potential Franchise Quarterback. Capital F. Capital Q.

But his head coach looks completely overmatched and I’d fire him for Mike Vrabel in a second. But Josina Anderson reported Thursday that Mayo is likely to stay but with changes on the coaching staff.

“The Patriots assessment on head coach Jerod Mayo already includes broad evaluations of his coaching staff, and how he can be better supported and support himself with potential modifications for next season, per league sources.”

That’s been the theory for a while so let’s assume Mayo stays, barring a complete disaster on or off the field in the final two weeks.

Between the coaching staff and the Top 3 pick in the NFL Draft, there are major, franchise-altering decisions to be made in the next six months.

Do you trust the guys in place to make the right decisions? I don’t. From ownership down, you should have questions.

And don’t tell me they got the Maye pick right - he fell into their lap at No. 3. A round later, they traded down and took Ja’Lynn Polk over Ladd McConkey. Eliot Wolf botched the offensive line so badly the team could not start Maye to open the season. Minus Maye, it was a brutal offseason.

Tom Curran has suggested the team needs to hire a “football overlord” to guide them going forward. He’s probably right - but I thought the whole idea in jettisoning Belichick was to have a collaborative. Are they really willing to bail on that idea after one season?

I hope so.

Because even with the talented Maye at the helm, you can score a pair of tickets to Saturday’s game against the Chargers - in the 200 level - for under $100. In this economy????

The Celtics’ attempt at the repeat will be interesting. And the Red Sox trying to salvage their reputation and get back to playoffs will be worth monitoring.

But the Patriots’ navigation of the offseason and how they build around Drake Maye is the biggest sports story in Boston as we turn the calendar to 2025.

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Week 15: 0-3 /// Season Record: 23-25 (45.8%) 🤢🤢🤢

Not particularly close last week. Was 10 games clear of .500 at this time last season, so to this point have not been able to match that success.

Trust. The. Process.

The Side
BRONCOS +3.5 AT BENGALS

Part of the NFL’s three-game Saturday slate, I’m excited to bet on the Broncos here.

Ranked #9 in season-long DVOA - the Broncos have been better than the Bengals (#17) this season. Cincinnati’s defense has allowed 26.2 PPG - that’s the fifth-highest number in the NFL. They’re 29th in defensive DVOA with the second-easiest defensive schedule. Bo Nix and Sean Payton should be able to move the ball against this unit.

On the other side, there is no team better prepared to try and slow down Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins than the Broncos, as they get back Riley Moss from injury to pair with Pat Surtain.

Payton has a solid 33-16-1 ATS record in road and neutral site games since 2018 - that’s No. 1 in the NFL. The Broncos are 3-0 ATS this year with extended rest and they get that here. Denver plus the points here Saturday - and an added plus that as of Friday morning this shows as a Two-Bag Sharp Score at Sharp Hunter.

The Total
UNDER 40.5 COLTS AT GIANTS

Of the 15 games the Giants have played this season, 10 of those have gone to the under. In fact, their games this year have gone under by over three points per game - that’s #1 in the NFL.

Now the Colts come in as an indoor team having to play outside in what projects to be a rainy MetLife Stadium for portions of the game on Sunday. The Colts are in a weird spot here. If BOTH the Chargers and Broncos win on Saturday, they will be eliminated from playoff contention. If one or both lose, they need to win this game to stay alive.

If by Sunday they get eliminated, I don’t see a lot of motivation to score a million points on a bad NYG defense. If they’re alive for a spot by kickoff, I could see them trying to run the ball and stay clear of mistakes from Anthony Richardson. More running and time of possession is good for the under.

Richardson missed practice on Wednesday and Thursday - his status seems pretty up in the air. Malik Nabers and Tyrone Tracy missed practice Thursday for NYG. There is a lot of talent that might end up missing this game.

The Giants are in clear tank mode as they try to secure the No. 1 overall pick in next year’s draft. Many paths for the UNDER here - and if you get some of these guys ruled out Friday, this number will come down.

The Prop
FOSTER MOREAU ATTD +800 (CAESARS)

I’m still waiting on the sports books to feed me Moreau’s yardage and reception props, but I’m playing this today. Over the last four games, the Raiders defense has allowed an average of 5 catches and 61.5 yards to opposing TEs. On the year, they allow the 4th-most yards per game to the position and sit 23rd in DVOA’s defense vs. position at TE.

Saints’ QBs have a 144.1 QB rating targeting Moreau this season. He led the team in receiving yards their last game.

And as a former Raider, this is a #revengegame for Moreau. He’s scoring a TD on Sunday. Or maybe not. But at 8-1, I’m betting.

Sunday Updates:

Painful loss with the Broncos

Still okay with the NYG/IND UNDER with Joe Flacco in for Richardson.

Played Moreau OVER 18.5 REC YARDS to go with the TD bet.

Packers / Panthers teaser for me

Josh Allen - if you think he’s going to try and match Lamar’s Christmas Day and wants the MVP (and $1.5 million bonus attached to it via his contract) - some good 2+ TD props out there. He’s set up for a big day.

Good luck with all the bets!

On your sports media and sports betting notebook…

➡️ Sean McAdam is a respected journalist. So when he reported in his weekly column this week that Lou Merloni would see an increased schedule on NESN’s Red Sox games this season…and that Will Flemming would take over as the voice of the team on the radio…and that Will Middlebrooks would be in the mix on both NESN and on WEEI - that report got national attention.

Of course you - the loyal MutStack reader and subscriber - knew this three weeks ago when we reported it here…first. And then two weeks ago, when I wrote that based on people I talked to, I was 100% confident in what I had written.

Damn right, Ziggy.

We didn’t get the big headlines on the national media websites, but we had the story well before anyone else.

And you had it first because you’re a loyal reader and subscriber.

As for when the team will make these moves official, who the hell knows?

➡️ Most importantly, there were no technical meltdowns like we had for Tyson vs. Paul.

But from picture quality to replay speed to graphics to the Ian Eagle-led broadcast booth for Steelers and Chiefs—I’ll give Netflix a solid A- for their NFL broadcast debut on Christmas day.

Small docks for the ‘blah’ pregame crew and a lack of sports betting content (as far as I could tell) on the two-game broadcast. But the rest of it was very, very good. In particular, some of the replay angles had a Super Bowl broadcast quality to them.

It made the Amazon Prime broadcasts seem jayvee in comparison.

➡️ The only “daily” sports betting show on Boston Radio, The Gambler with Adam Kaufman, is expanding. Heard weeknights from 10 PM until midnight on 680 AM WRKO since its launch in May of 2023, the show moves to 9 PM til’ midnight starting next week on January 2.

I asked Kaufman how the show might change given the extra hour.

“I’d say we’re still determining our future content plans,” he told me this week. “That said, I think the earlier start time presents an opportunity to do more with that evening’s West Coast slate than we’ve been able to do in the past because so many games begin after 9 PM EST. So I suspect that the first hour will be more driven by that day’s schedule, with more official show plays. Also, I think we’ve chosen to be pretty guest-heavy in general. The extra hour gives us more time to have our experts and time for just the hosts to expand certain conversations, without the rush.”

The show’s posted podcast may stay at two hours, given that the first hour will be geared towards bets already placed and games already played.

Massachusetts posted another record sports betting month in November, with $777.8 million bet on sports in the Bay State - a 4% increase over a record October.

It comes in many shapes and sizes but make no mistake - there is an appetite for sports betting content. Speaking of -

➡️ One of the most-listened-to voices in sports betting radio/podcasting, Nick Kostos, is part of a new deal with NBC Sports where the final hour of his show will air on the NBC Sports FAST channel. “You Better, You Bet” will see its 6-7 PM hour televised on the FAST channel via Peacock and all major FAST channel distributors.

Given his unique energy and expertise, it’s just a matter of time before Kostos is part of a network TV / streaming NFL pregame show talking about betting the games and his picks.

➡️ It was not the biggest story but the reaction locally in Boston and then nationally with Angry Jeff Passan and others, to Mick Marks’ Juan Soto report, was my favorite local media story of 2024.

➡️ The horse racing world was excited for Thursday’s opening day at Santa Anita. Then there were no announced scratches an hour before first post. Then in the opening race, a 20-1 ML shot won…and paid just $7. It has not been a good year for the sport and I’m anxious to see the year-end betting numbers. Racing has to realize that sports betting is stealing its customers and make changes to make the game better - for the bettor - in 2025.

➡️ Local media predictions for 2025? WEEI brings over a 98.5 The Sports Hub voice for yet another new afternoon drive show. An online media company launches full-time coverage of Boston sports. Former WEEI host Glenn Ordway launches his own show/podcast. Tony Massarotti has to apologize for something dumb he says on the radio. There will be no grammatical errors on MutStack.com.

And with that, we have for sure said it.

A blessed and Happy New Year to you and yours. Back on Sunday to update the NFL picks. And back next week with the first Four-Pack of 2025.

Good luck with all your bets. And thanks for reading.

Good weekend.