Here’s an interesting one.

We were doing Crossing Broadcast today and a couple of listeners mentioned that John Kincade ranted about the Philadelphia Eagles during his Thursday show. The crux of the matter is that apparently Eagles players aren’t allowed to do media with 97.5 the Fanatic, and in setting up the rant, Kincade shared a story about how he was once embargoed from a team and instead set up a food stand outside of the parking lot:

“It’s the stupid-ass policy of a generation and it doesn’t happen in other cities.”

“You know the overlords are gonna come from inside the NovaCare Complex and say ‘we must shut that down, shut it down!'”

This is fascinating, because as you well know, the Eagles have had a longstanding relationship with 94 WIP, which has been the official radio partner for as long as I can remember. The deal is incredibly lucrative. CBS Radio/Entercom/Audacy paid/pay millions of dollars for those rights, because the Birds are the biggest thing in this town and you wanna be the top dog radio partner.

There very well may be something written into a contract that says “Eagles players cannot appear on competing radio stations,” but I’m not certain. If you’re a radio source and have that information, gimme a call or send me a DM. (update – there is nothing in writing, players are allowed to appear on other stations) But obviously if you paid millions for the radio rights you would push for any kind of exclusivity you can get, to create an edge against a competitor, right? If you were Action News and paid, say, $10 million dollars for the Birds’ TV rights, you sure as hell wouldn’t want NBC 10 doing an exclusive interview with Jason Kelce.

Kincade is saying that they don’t do this in other markets, which makes the argument more dynamic. Maybe in Green Bay Aaron Rodgers is allowed to do appearances on the official radio partner and then a second or third station as well, with no issues. It seems like things are more loose elsewhere while it’s intensely competitive up here. The Eagles PR team probably gets something like 150+ credential requests for camp because Birds’ access is highly coveted.

It is, however, a two-way street. The Fanatic has the Sixers and Flyers rights. As far as I can remember, Doc Rivers and Torts ain’t going on WIP, right?* WIP doesn’t give a shit about hockey in the first place, but I believe the Sixers maintain exclusivity with the Fanatic in the same way WIP does it with the Eagles. If WIP conceded Eagles guests to the Fanatic, it would only make sense that Tyrese Maxey would be allowed to jump on with Marks and Reese.

We’ll continue to follow this story. If the John Kincade show broadcasts from a lemonade stand across the street from NovaCare, we’ll send a camera crew for documentation.

*EDIT – I’m told TORTS did indeed go on 94 WIP after he was hired.

EDIT 2 – I came across some old interviews with Avonte Maddox on the Fanatic. Looks like it was a sponsored thing with a third party involved. Makes sense. FOX Sports the Gambler has also had players on, so it seems like there’s no prohibitive issue here. Players can get paid for these spots as well, so sometimes it works out in a three-way trade type of deal.