Peak statement on loss of BSU rights
Don Day | December 15, 2009Peak Broadcasting GM Kevin Godwin issued a statement today on the loss of the rights to Boise State sports to Citadel and KBOI/KKGL. Godwin says – in a nutshell – that there was no way to make money, and that picking up the rights would have cost jobs and more. He also says current play-by-play man Bob Behler is under contract to Peak until July – and “any mention of his future employment outside of Peak Broadcasting is premature.”
For the first time ever, a third party sports marketing company purchased the rights to Boise State Bronco Athletics beginning with the 2010-2011 football season. Learfield Sports proposed a new and dramatically different radio rights agreement that would have cost us more than our current agreement with Boise State and provided us with no opportunity to recover that investment.
Learfield asked for more than 500 hours of inventory on 580/63 KIDO and a FM station, they also asked us to pay for the majority of the broadcast team’s compensation and pay Learfield Sports a cash fee. Basically, we would be giving up a combination of hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and inventory for the privilege to run Broncos Football, Men’s & Women’s Basketball games with no way to recoup any of that investment. Most importantly, this proposal eliminated the opportunity for the radio partner to sell ANY gameday broadcast inventory. Why would any radio company do a deal like that?
Any radio company that committed that amount of resources without any chance to get a return on that investment will most likely have to make significant adjustments in terms of advertising rates and staff. Peak refuses to cut staff, compromise the quality of our six stations or raise advertising prices for our customers in order to run thirteen football games and Men’s and Women’s Basketball games. We value our brands, our employees who have built those brands and our customers who need exceptional value for the advertising dollars they spend. If we would have entertained this bid and won it, our staff, our advertisers, and our listeners would lose.
We enjoy our current agreement that we have directly with Boise State and look forward to our broadcast of the Fiesta Bowl in January on 580 KIDO, all of our opportunities leading up to the big game, our continuing support of providing quality Bronco Tuesday Coaches Show broadcasts and of course, Men’s & Women’s Basketball game broadcasts. We are moving forward with investments in products and partnerships that generate a return for Peak Broadcasting and for our advertisers. We will continue to cover Boise State Athletics and provide our listeners with outstanding BSU content, as well as multi-team coverage; so that our advertisers can continue to reach all sports fans the Treasure Valley. We will provide our advertisers with valuable and reasonably priced local sponsorships for all those products.
In regards to the Voice of the Broncos, Bob Behler is a Peak Broadcasting employee under contract until July 2010 and any mention of his future employment outside of Peak Broadcasting is premature.
The justification sounds weak. They had excellent potential with Jon and Chris and they dropped them. They also dropped morning news further moving away from contact with the local market in favor of programming that is, at least in my opinion, greatly watered down. Their programming choices seemed to be very short sighted.
(God, I’m going to miss venting on this site).
In my opinion they didn’t take the opportunity to build on the potential that the Bronco franchise brought to the table. I hope (and think) KBOI and Citadel can do a better job.
“refuses to cut staff”? That’s a good one, Kevin!
Yes, Mr. Godwin’s “refuses to cut staff” comment in light of the number of heads he’s rolled at Peak since taking the helm is, at best, a bit disingenuous.
Are we to believe that Peak chose not to bid for the Bronco sports package? Are we to believe that Citadel accepted the terms of the 3rd party management firm knowing that they (Citadel) would lose money on the deal?
It is apparent that Peak intends to hold Bob Behler hostage until the middle of next year. Try as they may, Peak management fails to surprise us.
Perhaps some clarification will be forthcoming from a disinterested party privy to the details.
I agree that Dave Burnett was the best part of Peak’s Bronco football coverage. I hope what’s left of his gig is not jeopardized by this latest turn of events.
So how will this affect the other stations across the state (Twin Falls, N. Idaho, etc) that carried the games on the “Bronco Sports Radio Network”? Will they still get to broadcast the games, or what’s the scoop?
Having run up against Learfield, I believe every word Mr. Goodwin says. Learfield takes every money-making opportunity away from the local radio group and leaves you with the special privilege of still being able to air the games (after taking more than their fair share of your inventory for their promotional desires) Learfield is soulless.