Jim Moore
Final week 710 ESPN Seattle shook up its sporting activities converse present lineup for the next time in 10 months with the dismissals of Danny O’Neil and Paul Gallant, who co-hosted the station’s morning demonstrate “Danny and Gallant.”
I guess that was a cost-chopping and heading-in-a-different-route move, put together with the hope that the return of Mike Salk will spark 710’s sagging rankings.
Salk co-hosted 710’s original morning present, “Brock and Salk,” with Brock Huard when the station released the sporting activities communicate format in 2009. Salk left for his hometown of Boston to co-host a sports talk display there and arrived again to Seattle in 2014 when he was hired as 710 ESPN Seattle’s program director.
Since that time he has co-hosted a weekly podcast with Huard and remained the program director until eventually three months in the past, when Kyle Brown took around these responsibilities as Salk took some time off to get ready for his return to the airwaves this thirty day period.
Total disclosure prior to I go any further: I was a host at 710 ESPN Seattle for 10 a long time before I received fired by Salk final November. I utilised to joke with him that he would fire me someday, and to be honest, I wasn’t definitely joking, I really a lot figured it would come about following my former head manager, Dave Pridemore, was fired all through the summer months of 2020.
Pridemore was a person of my most important supporters, and Salk was not. He hardly ever assumed a great deal of me as a host, and which is fine. If I didn’t understand it presently as a columnist, it was reinforced as a sporting activities discuss clearly show host — you just can’t you should anyone. Some software directors and listeners might feel you’re fantastic even though some others feel you’re the absolute worst.
When he returned from his tough stint in Boston, I went into his business office and instructed him I felt lousy for him and although fishing for text, I stated that it in all probability wouldn’t have gone nicely for me in Boston, both.
“Let’s confront it, Jim, you’d suck anyplace but Seattle,” Salk reported.
I was not absolutely sure how to react to that. It sounded like anything you’d say behind someone’s back, not to his encounter, and in a bizarre way I variety of highly regarded him for it.
All I could appear up with was:
“That’s not incredibly great, Mike.”
And he claimed: “But it’s genuine, is not it?
On the day I was fired I desire I experienced explained to him that I lasted 10 a long time in my hometown, and he only produced it one particular in his, but I did not.
From that day forward we experienced a chilly romance and I knew I’d be on shaky floor if layoffs had been regarded. When it happened, I was not entirely stunned as the oldest guy on a 3-person show. With promoting revenue down dramatically during the pandemic, it manufactured sense to go with a two-human being present and reduce one particular of the salaries.
If you’ve been fired or laid off, you know how it goes most of the time. You go via all of individuals emotional phases ahead of you arrive out the other facet and imagine: “Hey, it turns out it was a blessing in disguise.”
Which is certainly been the scenario for me. My wife and I have not solely figured out the financial ramifications, particularly with twins who will be going to university up coming yr, but I’ve really liked paying time with my kids and going to all of their basketball and baseball game titles, which wasn’t doable when I had a occupation.
It took me back again to the working day I was fired when I listened to the news about O’Neil and Gallant. I utilised to get the job done with O’Neil on an afternoon present referred to as “Danny, Dave and Moore,” so this is an admittedly biased belief: I assume 710 must have figured out a way to keep him given that he’s a marvelous host who features a wonderful mix of insight and humor.
Gallant was up in opposition to the odds from the pretty begin when he arrived from Houston two many years in the past. New male in city hoping to get up to velocity with the new teams and trying to construct rapport with O’Neil through a flat screen given that Danny was carrying out the clearly show remotely from Manhattan.
Here’s the worst section: 3 months in the past all the hosts ended up informed that Salk would return to the lineup in August or September. So in the course of the summer season most of the hosts were justifiably worried about their work position, pondering if they’d be dusted when Salk arrived back.
They figured accurately that any person would have to go, and it turned out to be two somebodies. Firings occur all the time in athletics radio, but these ended up diverse. The hosts were being place on observe that they had been essentially playing for their work opportunities although Salk was in the on-deck circle.
I would have fairly not acknowledged what was likely on behind the scenes than to be on pins and needles as Gallant described it in a social media online video. Just explain to me I’m fired without placing me in tense limbo for a few months.
The other section that’s fascinating and inaccurate, in my view: Considering that Salk technically gave up his system director career title 3 months back, it is considered that he had no say in the final decision to fire O’Neil and Gallant. I never purchase that for a minute. Brown’s and Salk’s manager, Cathy Cangiano, deferred to Salk all the time when I was there, and I’m guessing he experienced a whole lot of input with the final decision to pink slip O’Neil and Gallant.
Considering that he’s changing them with the debut of “The Mike Salk Show” on Tuesday, it wouldn’t look really good if he were even perceived as the the very least little bit accountable for the firings.
I’m not a fan of his know-it-all jackhammer style, but Salk is thought of to be a great host who features solid opinions. Regardless of whether you like him or not, he has a significant subsequent which is particular to improve the rankings. Then again, as one skeptic famous on Twitter, the ratings are bound to go up in the slide when the Seahawks’ year starts off, no subject who’s internet hosting the exhibits.
For the longest time 710 ESPN Seattle held a scores gain above KJR, the other sporting activities chat station in Seattle. Not so substantially any more. Salk’s return is developed to assist in that regard.
Morale is explained to be at an all-time low at 710, but at minimum all the uncertainty has been changed by a guaranteed point — if the station sinks or swims, Mike Salk will get the credit score or the blame.
Jim Moore has included Washington’s sports activities scene from every angle for numerous news shops. You can find him on Twitter @cougsgo.
