News

Media Nuggets: Beasley’s Case Against Anthony Gargano, The Athletic’s Next Act, and the Flyers Reporter Shuffle

By Kevin Kinkead

Published: Sep 19th, 2023 · 11:03 AM EDT

---

Hello everyone. There’s a lot going on in Philadelphia sports media at the moment, so instead of a rapid-fire series of short blog posts, we’re going notebook-style with the latest local tidbits.

Some things to keep an eye on as October nears:

1) The Inquirer currently has 0 Flyers writers. You might have noticed that Jeff Neiburg was at camp on Monday morning:

🎶 It’s been awhileeeee 🎶 pic.twitter.com/susXy0kZLE

— Jeff Neiburg (@Jeff_Neiburg) September 18, 2023

Neiburg is currently handling the Inquirer’s sports betting vertical, but he does have hockey experience and covered the Flyers for the Daily News before he was caught up a 2015 round of layoffs. Naturally, Neiburg is the guy to turn to in the interim, since Giana Han left for Baltimore and Olivia Reiner moved to the Eagles beat. The Inquirer recently posted a job opening for a “beat writer,” which is the Flyers gig, and they should have a new employee in place soon.

2) Did the Inquirer need two Flyers beat writers? Probably not. Whatever the reason, moving Reiner to the Eagles was the right decision, because you can never have enough Eagles coverage. For years, the Inquirer carried four Birds writers in Jeff McLane, Zach Berman, Les Bowen, and Paul Domowitch. After Berman left and Bowen and Domo took buyouts, they brought in E.J. Smith and then Josh Tolentino, carrying three writers instead of four. Now they’re back to that ROBUST beat group, with the columnists contributing as well. They can put eight people in the Eagles press box if they want to.

3) Speaking of beats, The Athletic currently does not have one for the Sixers, Flyers, or Eagles. Locally, they were pretty much gutted by All City defections.

One name that came up in talks was Kevin Kurz, a Philly native and former Flyers employee who currently covers the Islanders and had a previous stint reporting on the Sharks. He recently wrote about Brian Boucher taking the Flyers’ color commentary job, and there were discussions of having him do the Flyers beat this year, but it seems as though there’s been no final decision on the hockey front. There was also a job posting for an Eagles writer that went up a few weeks ago, but nothing for the Sixers. We’re told that the company is planning on having some single-sport beats, like Matt Gelb, for instance, focusing strictly on the Phillies, but other sports, hockey and basketball perhaps, might be covered regionally, where one writer would handle 2-3 teams at once. Again, just talks there, and nothing confirmed or finalized by The Athletic, but it seems like that route is inevitable as they continue to trim costs, post-NYT sale.

4) Don’t expect All City talent to appear on 94 WIP. Don’t expect any cooperation or collaboration on anything at all between those two outlets. That’s the word on the street.

5) All City still needs a Phillies writer. They went after Gelb, unsuccessfully. They’d be smart to reach out to Jim Salisbury, or maybe they already have.

6) One of the common things you see on social is that 97.5 the Fanatic will be playing top 40 hits by this time next year. Common joke after the departure of Mikey Miss, Jamie Lynch, Devon Givens, and the Anthony Gargano lawsuit. For what it’s worth, not once in any discussion with anybody have I heard anything about Beasley flipping formats. They’re moving the Fanatic program director back to WMMR, and, from my understanding, will continue with sports talk on 97.5 under a new PD.

7) Keep in mind, Beasley owns multiple stations in the Philadelphia market. Just because the Fanatic is struggling doesn’t necessarily mean the entire cluster is lagging behind. WMMR does very well, with Preston and Steve crushing ratings for years now. WMGK is popular and WXTU does well also. Apparently there are country music fans in the Philadelphia region (underrated topic, probably worth a story).

EDIT – I should point out that the Fanatic is profitable. You can still make money while losing in the ratings if you have hosts who are good with sponsors and all of that. 

8) Mike Missanelli was in a weird Twitter kerfuffle Monday with former Fox Sports and Golf Channel reporter Holly Sonders. Not sure if you saw the video of the woman getting kicked off a plane, but there was a parody account that shared the video, saying it was Sonders (it wasn’t), and she chewed Mike out for sharing it:

Stop trying to get people to click on your false information @MikeMiss25 . Everyone has told you it wasn’t me on that plane and you still keep your bullshit tweet up.

— Holly Sonders (@holly_sonders) September 18, 2023

Hey Holly. I made a mistake. I apologized for it. Now enough.

— Mike Missanelli (@MikeMiss25) September 18, 2023

9) Does Beasley have a legal case against Anthony Gargano? I think so. It’s one thing to try to enforce these non-competes, which are typically pretty flimsy and don’t hold up well when challenged. But Beasley’s ire is directed more towards Cuz breaching his contract (in their words) by building the All City staff and soliciting 97.5 the Fanatic employees to join him in the new venture. It’s one thing to have someone simply sit out until their non-compete expires, but if you lose multiple employees and advertisers begin to leave, then you have a much stronger claim that Cuz significantly damaged Beasley. If I had to guess, I think this ends in a settlement, and rather quickly, because I don’t think either side wants to go crazy with legal fees via some long and drawn out process.

What’s interesting is that Gargano was connected to All City via an investor, so his importance to the Philadelphia expansion goes up the chain, beyond CEO Brandon Spano. You wonder how that influences All City’s legal strategy and larger-level stance.

10) Not sure if this was reported anywhere, but All City first filed for the PHLY trademark in April. The process of building the staff and putting this thing together took place over many months.