News

10 Observations Following Ray Didinger’s Victory in the Philly Sports Talk Radio Field of 32

By Kevin Kinkead

Published: Apr 7th, 2022 · 10:38 AM EDT

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Barring a late miracle, Ray Didinger will defeat his co-host Glen Macnow in the championship game of our Philly Sports Talk Radio field of 32:

Here we go! Championship round. Vote early and vote often. Who will cut down the net? 🏀

Ray Diddy vs @RealGlenMacnow

— Crossing Broad (@CrossingBroad) April 6, 2022

Congratulations to Ray on his big victory. Ray does not have a cell phone, or social media, so someone is going to have to call his landline or see him in person to deliver the news. That’s pretty funny and paradoxical. Ray Diddy won a contest that was done via Twitter voting, and he doesn’t even have a Twitter account. That says everything you need to know about the guy and how respected he is in this area. He won an online contest without using any kind of personal account to stump for votes.

Here are some other observations from this exercise, in no particular order:

1. Glen and Ray both making it to the final shows how admired that weekend show is. I’ve been on the record in the past saying it’s the best show in local radio, because it’s just straightforward sports talk without lame-ass hot takes or recurring dopey callers, like INGY.
2. You see that a lot of the younger guys, plus Jen Scordo, did well utilizing social media. They shared the polls and mobilized their followers and churned out a lot of votes that way.
3. Obviously the voting was on the CB Twitter account, so you see patterns based on what we’ve written in the past, or opinions we share. What I mean by that is Angelo Cataldi and Howard Eskin fans aren’t exactly big Crossing Broad readers, right? They have a lot of older supporters in this region, and those supporters aren’t following CB, reading CB, or using Twitter in the first place.
4. The Howard Eskin vs. Eliot Shorr-Parks was the most derided matchup of the entire bracket. People were abstaining from that one. There were not many votes for that contest.
5. People say stuff like “this bracket sucks” as a response to results they disagree with, as if we had something to do with it. If you don’t like the outcome, go tell the voters. You can’t rig a Twitter poll.
6. The selection committee did not create any kind of preferred path for anyone. One reader pointed out that Ray Diddy defeated three straight members of the 97.5 the Fanatic morning show, but in order for that to happen, Jamie Lynch and Bob Cooney both had to complete upsets in earlier rounds.
7. The Cuz did surprisingly well. I thought he might go out against Jon Marks or Tyrone. Seems like The Cuz has a lot of support that maybe we weren’t aware of.
8. The Elite 8 was split evenly between four WIP hosts and four Fanatic hosts. Interesting to see the balance there.
9. A number of people noted to me that picking between Devon Givens and Glen Macnow was really hard. Seems like both guys are well-liked.
10. All four members of the 94 WIP morning show were eliminated in the opening round.

Anyway, thanks for participating. We like to have fun with these things. Nothing serious, though you see some egos begin to bulge when a harmless exercise like this finds its way to Twitter. Maybe next year we’ll go back to a field of 64 and pick another cool topic. Maybe we’ll do local television. With Jim Gardner retiring, I think Ukee Washington will have to be the #1 overall seed. Or maybe we’ll do a field of 64 for radio callers. I think Bernie from Broomall is a #1 seed, and INGY gets a play-in game against Eagles Shirley or Brother Scott from Barrington.