Washington, D.C. sports radio station ESPN 980 broadcasts Baltimore Orioles games. Photo by Mike Frandsen.
Should a D.C. sports radio station carry baseball games from a team from Baltimore, whose owner tried to prevent Washington from getting its own team?
Red Zebra Broadcasting, which owns ESPN 980 (WTEM) and its sister station SportsTalk 570, signed a two-year deal to carry Orioles games in February.
WTEM, Washington’s original 24-hour sports talk radio station, started broadcasting in 1992. Washington’s other sports talk radio station, 106.7 The Fan (WJFK), which began its all sports format in 2009, won the rights to carry Washington Nationals games for 2011.
In a series of emails, Red Zebra Director of Programming Chuck Sapienza defended ESPN 980’s decision to broadcast Orioles games.
To read the interview on Examiner.com, click here.
I walked away from the O’s several years ago and one of the reasons was how Peter Angelos handled the Nationals coming to DC. Rather than trusting that his fans would be loyal to the team, Angelos whined like a little 6th grade girl and tried everything to stop a team from coming into “his” town. He’s a squirmy little worm and will do anything to bring the Nats down and I can’t believe WTEM is helping him.