By David Scott
Boston Sports Media Watch

By any definition of the term, that was one Wild Week on the Boston sports media landscape. Scenarios, schemes and sneak-attacks were sprung by all participating parties and in the end (or at least by Thursday night) Entercom flexed its considerable muscle and reminded everyone that they are - as they’ll gladly tell you - the Sports Leader.

With a pending partnership with New Jersey-based Nassau Broadcasting, WEEI will penetrate further and deeper into New England than any terrestrial station would ever need and they will effectively be able to out-everything just about all of its competitors.

Meanwhile, John Dennis and Gerry Callahan remain very much in limbo and very much “on vacation,” according to Entercom spokesperson George Regan. “The vacation can end when they sign the contract (which has been offered to them).”

Regan, reached on his cell phone Thursday night in 8 p.m. hour, then emphasized that the focus of WEEI and Entercom was the Jimmy Fund Telethon at this particular time. (Shots was unable to pin down anyone from the D&C camp for comment Thursday night.)

Regan’s bravado aside (at least he’s dropped the beach line!), the tables have certainly turned in the last 24 hours as D&C’s “stupid money” opportunity at a non-Entercom station appears to have disappeared. Even if the clandestine VC group is still interested in grabbing D&C, there are few - if any - other outlets that offer the combination of signal strength and depth of coverage that the Nassau properties hold. For the time being anyway, ‘EEI (and more appropriately Entercom) has shown D&C exactly who the boss is.

The late-to-the-overall-story Boston Globe chimed in with its early take on the EnterNass coupling, and worked in a Julie Kahn quote that echoes what Regan told us. Except she used the word “currently” - as in, their offer to D&C is currently on the table. That may not be the case in the coming days.

Jessica Heslam has this for the Friday Herald; while Christopher Rowland re-does the above-linked piece. Hard-charging Heslam has more details on the specifics of what will be carried on the new network (not Sox, Celts or Patriots Monday she says) and reports that Entercom paid $10 million for its half of WCRB. Susan Bickelhaupt has the reported Dan Patrick visit to ‘EEI occurring on Thursday and Friday of next week. Wonder what happens if D&C are back by then? Will it be a 3-man booth? (Shots emailed Patrick late Thursday requesting clarification, but did not hear back.) She also seems to try and put the Bob Neumeier-to-’EEI rumors to rest with an update on Neumie’s NBC workload with an update from local media superagent Brad Blank who had replied to a message left by Shots earlier this week by indicating, “I’m just reading the papers on (the ‘EEI stuff) like everyone else.” Brian Maloney at savewrko.com has a take on all this as well.

So here, in Shots’s opinion is what’s going to have to shake down in the next 48, 72, 96 hours regarding D&C and ‘EEI:

• D&C are going to need to eat a little humble pie. They might even have to put the tails between their legs for a few uncomfortable moments. It might even be necessary to “hug it out” with Ari Go. . ., errrr, Jason Wolfe and Kahn to save face. The morning masters will still be paid handsomely - probably in the $750,000 range, each - and they will still be able to do what they do best on a station that needs their talents in the all-important morning drive time.

There’s no shame in making three-quarters of a mill for 20-hour, on-air, work weeks. If they can get a seven-year deal (unlikely), they should take it and be overjoyed. Five years (the low end of the VC commitment to the duo, we were told) is a nice cushion, but the truth is D&C may have negotiated themselves down to a three year deal.

[We're predicting a post-Labor Day return for the duo - just in time to launch the Pats' regular season and the Sox playoff drive.]

No matter the length and date of return, the money will be more than adequate and the heavy lifting will still be minimal.

(The largest caveat in all of this - and something we’ve underplayed - is ensuring that Callahan is healthy enough to be a five-day-per-week co-host. The D&C side is talking like it’s nothing to be concerned with, but “multiple throat surgeries” are not exactly the three favorite words of people who use their vocal chords every day for their livelihoods.)

• Once D&C are re-upped (and we assume that will happen sooner rather than later), Entercom’s suits will need to bring little boy Wolfe and big girl Kahn into the principal’s office and explain to them that this is no way to run a college station, never mind a major metropolitan commercial station with millions in annual billing. The line of advertisers that threatened to either jump ship or request make-goods would have stretched out the New Balance building if they had all descended on ‘EEI’s offices en masse. Not only did the negotiations with D&C become public but the dirty laundry of the station started to filter in the week-long discussion. While disgruntled employees are nothing new in sports media or business in general, it’s never good for business when the behind-the-glass and in-the-trenches people start slinging mud for public anonymously for public consumption.

It also wouldn’t be a bad time to remind everyone that confidence is one thing, but arrogance is an entirely separate thing. A little humility goes a long way and it would certainly be a welcome addition to the ‘EEI modus operandi.

• Thanks to all of you who were kind enough to contact me and offer praise, comments and questions regarding these last seven days of D&C DisContinuation coverage here at Shots.

For all those naysayers who continue to think a sports media critic is a wasted position for a local (or national) newsgathering organization, I give you this week as Exhibit A in defense of having a Shots-like person on staff. As Newsday’s Neil Best recently said in a fantastic interview, “The easiest way to explain [my column] to people is that my jurisdiction is everything that does not occur on the field. Media, business, consumer advocacy. That sort of thing.”

Exactly. And neither of the Boston papers have anyone fitting that description in a town where that job description would make perhaps the most sense of any major American city.

• One early, plausible scenario has Entercom waiting a couple of years to buy the remaining portion of ‘CRB from Nassau and begin to simulcast there as well and add Red Sox and Celtics games to the FM dial as well.

. . . Shares of Entercom rose slightly on Thursday. Nassau is privately held. The deal was announced too late to have any real bearing on the ETM stock, rising ever-so-slightly in after-hours trading (.03).

. . .The EnterNass deal couldn’t come at a worse time for up-for-sale 890 ESPN. If corporate (Disney) was seriously considering taking the station off of Jessamy Tang and her group’s hands - “They’ve kicked the tires,” confirmed one 890 insider - they will surely be reluctant to get involved in a market where ‘EEI is so pervasive and embedded. The weak 890 signal is made all the more cumbersome by a new ‘EEI network that stretches all across New England. As for other suitors, 890 probably would now make more sense as a non-sports format and would likely fetch far less than the Tang gang is hoping to recoup from its investment.

• Okay - just a few odds and ends and then we’ve got to put a wrap on a week that had more twists and turns than the old Paragon Park Roller Coaster:

. . . Desmond Conner delivered the goods with this one. DC is still one of New England’s most underrated talents, all these years later.

. . . Moneybags Michael Silver’s meaty debut at Yahoo! Sports was about what we’d expect (if a bit longer). He will, in short time, make that NFL page must-see.

. . . Word from Morrissey Boulevard is that the long-awaited Ron Borges replacement will not be a football writer after all. It’s quite possible it could be an NBA writer, in fact.

. . . It also looks as those the content-sharing agreement between the Herald and Gatehouse Media will be ending in the next two to six weeks (either Sept. 1 or Oct. 1), meaning guys like Albert Breer will no longer be found in the Herald and on the paper’s website. That will impact the Herald’s overall coverage of sports (and news as well), but it may have the biggest impact on the Pats’ blog, where Breer has done yeoman’s work.

. . . Gina Gershon rocks my world. Plenty of Fresca at the Shanty, if you’re ever in the Hull ‘hood, GG.

. . . We’d expect nothing less than this off-the-mark editorial from the Globe - the same place that had to be dragged kicking and screaming into Internet-first journalism.

The arguments made in the Tuesday editorial would have been relevant 30 years ago. But not now when the media needs to either adjust and bend or risk being left for irrelevant. Or worse yet - dead. The editorial puts too much weight in the corner of “objectivity,” as if that matters to fantasy football owners who just need stats and highlights to fill their desires.

. . . Amalie Benjamin has a fledgling fan club, but we’re wondering where the Christopher L. Gasper maniacs are hiding themselves. Gasper and Bob Ryan had two comical conversations on the Thursday “Globe 10.0.” when topics 9.0 and 10.0 were, in order, Elvis and Fantasy Football.

Ten-Point-Oh producer Alan Miller - and Ryan, in particular - are cultivating a gem in the young and promising Gasper.

. . . A slight correction to some inaccurate news we passed along regarding Bruins radio broadcasts for the upcoming season: WBZ’s Director of News & Programming Peter Casey has informed Shots that ‘BZ will be the home for the Bs this coming season adding that he didn’t “have any specifics about the contractual status to release at this time,” but Casey promised to keep us posted.

. . . On a solemn note, Providence Journal college hoops (and utility) writer and all-around great guy, Kevin McNamara lost his dad, James Francis McNamara, last Friday after a brief and valiant fight with a “particularly virulent form of throat cancer.” Notes can be left for the McNamara family at the ProJo’s site and many friends and peers have checked in here to let KMac know they’re thinking of him and his family at this difficult time.

Might be nice to include Mr. McNamara in our Jimmy Fund drive thoughts and donations.

David Scott writes from a seaside shanty on the shores of Hull, Mass. and can be reached at shotsATbostonsportsmedDOTcom

You can listen to Scott every Saturday morning from 9 to 11 a.m. as he co-hosts the Boston Sports Review Show on ESPN Radio 890 AM with ESPN’s All-Sports Reporter, Mike Salk.