Final Take

I've been in radio broadcasting for a little over a decade (with about a 15 year hiatus in between) and a lot of things have changed in radio, to which I will not get into here. Currently I work for a sports talk radio station which features a mix of nationally syndicated and local sports talk programming. One of the syndicated show that we broadcast on our weekday programming schedule is 'The Jim Rome Show'. After hearing 'The Jim Rome Show' off and on for the past few months, I have been able to draw conclusions about this show that I feel the need to express. But first, a brief history about Jim Rome. In the early 90's 'alternative culture' (a.k.a. Generation 'X') was at the axiom of American culture. Bill Clinton was the first Baby-Boomer President that seemed to identify with the 20 something's, Grunge rock and gangsta rap were the rage, cynicism and irony was cool and the new buzz word taking shape was 'Extreme'. At it's essence, 'extreme' meant 'attitude' 'no holds barred', 'in your face', 'no fear', 'telling it like it is' and 'keeping it real.' To keep pace with that mentality, ESPN launched a second sports programming station cleverly titled 'ESPN-2'. (There's that hip irony thing). ESPN-2 was touted as a younger station that would appeal to the next generation of sports fans. It featured moto-cross, roller hockey, surfing, BMX and skateboarding competitions, you know the 'Extreme Sports too hip for ESPN viewers'. With the new channel geared towards the younger, hipper 'extreme' sports fan, ESPN decided to also feature a new talk show and talk show host that would identify with the Gen X viewers, (who was actually a little bit older than the average Gen-X'er) by the name of Jim Rome. Rome fit the aesthetic of what ESPN-2's positioning statement was all about...'EXTREME'! He was in your face, had lots of attitude, used the slang used by Gen-X'ers like 'whack', and even had the signature staple that practically every male wore to prove to others that he was a 'Gen X'er' which was a goatee. Basically, Rome's mission was to be the 'Howard Stern of sports talk broadcasting'. He'd ask questions of his guests that would make them uncomfortable and the viewer uncomfortable as well. His big moment of notoriety occurred in 1993 when former NFL QB Jim Everett was a guest on the show. Everett was at the twilight of his mediocre career in the NFL and his stats for that season were less that stellar. As a result of this, Rome began to begin referring to Jim Everett as 'Chris Everett' (after the legendary female tennis star)as a means of describing the way he played football. Right from the start of the interview Everett had warned Rome that he had better not refer to him as Chris during the interview. Rome pounced on this opportunity and began to antagonize Everett during the interview. When Everett warned him for the last time not to call him by that name, Rome retorted with 'I believe I will Chris', to which Everett flipped over the table between them, stood up, and basically yanked Rome out of his seat and tossed him flat to the floor of the set readying for a beat down. It didn't come to that, but overnight, Jim Rome had become the talk of the sports-world and would capitalize on it. After leaving ESPN-2, he went back to radio and began his own radio show outside of Los Angeles aptly titled 'The Jim Rome Show' which he referred to as 'The Jungle'. It featured intro beds like a loop of Iggy Pop's classic 'Lust For Life' and the shows identifying bed, G-N-R's 'Welcome To The Jungle'. He basically took the persona he had developed on ESPN-2 and translated it to sports-talk radio, and like it or not, transformed sports-talk radio. To his credit, Rome didn't conduct a typical interview. Sure, he would field some of the standard questions that most figures in the world of sports would usually expect, but he would also ask some of the questions that would be hard hitting and uncomfortable to the interviewee, but what most listeners would want to know the answers to. When it came to his listeners, Rome didn't treat them like listeners. He referred to them as 'clones' because apparently they wanted to be just like him. When fielding calls, Rome expected his 'Clones' to have their points (a.k.a. 'Takes') together. No 'umms' or 'uh's' were allowed. If you didn't have a solid take to make every second of his air time worth listening to, then you were cut off and dropped and served with a little ridicule as your parting gift. Rome also changed the vernacular of sports language by utilizing the words like 'bringing it' 'whack' and 'money' were part of the 90's lingo that made his show sound more hip and targeted your high school/college or 20-something listener. The positioning statement that Rome set out to achieve was 'This isn't your Father's sports talk show', and for about a decade or so, he had succeeded in doing that. Fast forward 20 years later... Rome is still 'burning'. He served as the host of Pat Tillman's funeral, He has hosted TV shows on Fox, Showtime and even a return to ESPN. His syndicated radio program has also moved from different networks and is currently on the CBS sports network reaching 200 station across the nation. Two generations have passed since Rome became a staple on the presets of car radios of the sports talk listener, and in that time, Rome's show still sounds like it did when it was conceived in the early 90's; and when I say that, the context is not intended to be put in a positive light. So consider this my final 'take' on Jim Rome today. Rome is no longer the sports talk representative of the youth gone wild, but rather the knuckle dragging sports Neanderthal. We have all seen them; the guy who goes into any establishment, walking with his chest puffed out walking on the balls of his feet with a 'check me out' swagger while feeling the need to wear his sunglasses while shopping in the store. He's wearing the tight coaches polo shirt that can barely contain his beer gut, styling in his coaches shorts and still wears his hat backwards with the graying goatee. He's the guy who coaches 9-10 year old kids football and yells and screams at them during practices to play like champions because if they want to play in the NFL they have to be tough and mean like he was in high school or college, and during game days; in his mind, he is coaching an NFL team in conference championship game. Rome's audience is the guy who played O or D-line in high school, was the stud, married his high school cheer-leading sweetheart, had 3-4 kids settled down in the burbs, and now live in their past glories when they were young and cool and live vicariously through their kids named Connor and Ashley to live out their shattered dreams of athletic glory and adolescent fame. Basically, Rome is now the spokesman of today's sports bully. Rome has not evolved or matured from his once edgy and youthful persona. Instead he has begrudgingly held on to his style and brand of sports talk shtick and has become a caricature of himself. It's one thing for a guy in his 20's or even early 30's to claim that a listener's take was 'whack' or that the player he just interviewed was 'the bomb' or 'money', but when the guy who is belching out that slang is on the cusp of reaching the half century mark in age, well...it's just sad and pathetic. In fact, the day after the first day of the 2014 NFL Draft, Rome began his program by calling out Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones for not drafting Johnny Manziel by saying 'C'mon Jerry, you're better than that. C'mon bro, you're better than that!' It was then followed by an email that Rome read on the air that said 'I was just having a conversation with my Dad and had to cut him off. I told him Rome was about to start talking about the draft.' What was Rome's response to this? (I'm paraphrasing with some of this, but I know some of this is also verbatim) 'Yeah that's right. you cut off your dad. You know it. You know I'm bringing it. Sorry pops, I'm talking draft. Button it up pops, Rome's about to throw down his take on the NFL draft. You know it. I'm going there.' Really? Really Jim? You're nearly 50 and you still talk like your a street thug? Instead of maturing as a sports talk host, Rome has instead tried to make the content of the show more mature. His guests are not the typical athletes you would expect to hear doing interviews on a nationally syndicated sports talk show. They tend to be the players that are second on the depth chart or just like Rome himself, past their prime. He's even gone as far as to talk horse racing with horse owners, trainers and jockeys during the time when post-season basketball and hockey are in the forefront of the sports spotlight. Some view this as giving listeners a wide array of sports topics to expose and educate them to. Let's be honest, if you're being contacted by Jim Rome, that means you were a last resort to fill up some time. C'mon Jim. You're better than that. You're better than that bro. Right? The fact of the matter is that Jim Rome is no longer the staunch hip leader of his legion of 'clones'. In fact, he has become one of them. Perhaps Rome should no longer consider himself as the 'Julius Caesar' of sports radio, but rather 'Nero'. At least that would be more accurate and truthful. Tune up that violin Jimbo; Rome is indeed burning.