The Raiders and A’s share a stadium. Now they’ll also share a radio station. It took a couple years, but the Silver and Black will finally start having their games broadcast on 95.7 The Game starting with the upcoming 2013 NFL season. It’s a move that has been speculated since the station launched as the A’s flagship.
While the Raiders’ coverage will decrease in comparison to former home KSFO on the AM side, the sports radio station’s programming is far and away more compatible, especially because play-by-play man Greg Papa is already a fixture in The Wheelhouse’s noon timeslot. Non-game coverage will expand, with the Raiders displacing the 49ers in the Monday themed day, good for armchair QB-ing and GM-ing. Previously the Raiders’ day was Friday.
In the event of a conflict with the A’s, Raiders broadcasts will be on 102.1/98.5 KFOX, home of the Sharks and Entercom stablemate. KFOX has a better coverage footprint than KGMZ (The Game), which leads me to think that the Raiders actually negotiated this provision knowing that it was available via Entercom.
Potential for some conflict is high, though not so much in head-to-head timeslot situations. Mostly it’s a case of an A’s game finishing just before the start of a Raiders game during preseason or early during the regular season.
Overlap in A’s and Raiders schedules. Raiders games will be broadcast on KFOX-FM (102.1/98.5) in cases of conflicts.
Since the Raiders are expected to have full pre and postgame coverage for each game, it’s likely that all of the weeks above will be on KFOX, with the exception of the 8/29 game against the Seahawks.
Eventually, fans may clamor for more games on KFOX due to the better distributed signal. Of course, that will run into further conflicts with the Sharks, whose season starts in October as the baseball season ends. The 2013-14 NHL schedule, which will be the first under the new realignment scheme, has not yet been released.
Conflicts or not, it’s good that the Raiders are back on a sports station, which they haven’t been since they left 1050 years ago. Whether this will turn The Game into a proper East Bay-focused station is up to Entercom, whose station management has been careful to cater to all Bay Area fans much to the dismay of A’s and Raiders fans. In turn, the Raiders may have to beef up their affiliate network to compensate for The Game’s less signal.
To kick off the new relationship, Raiders draft day coverage is being held today on The Game.
newballpark.org 
you wonder how much 49ers related programming will be on? they already replaced 49ers mondays with raiders mondays. will the niners related interviews with the likes of staley and especially baalke continue? def would hope for some on the air talent changes in the future as i don’t think the lineup is all that good right now.
this was a definite need for the station. to get that 2nd pro team on it’s airwaves, they swung and missed on the w’s before this past 2012 season so getting the raiders was really the only logical step to build up the brand of the station. at this time it’s highly doubtful the other team on knbr in the niners whos you could see maybe wanting out since they’ll always be second bananas to the midgets would move to 95.7.
ratings wise i don’t know how much this will improve. over the years the raiders on 105.3 didn’t drastically improve that stations ratings during football season, in fact i think the ratings actually got lower. 95.7 ratings as a whole isn’t idea either. they’ve routinely gotten lower than a 1 average overall, though who knows what the ratings are for the 18-49 male demo that is really what the higharchy looks for and from what i’ve read a while ago the ratings for that demo are i guess better than what we see publicly when the ratings are released. obviously entercom isn’t all that upset 2 years into this format change considering the program director still has a job as if they weren’t happy you’d think some changes would’ve been made by now. i know a lot of east bay sports fans aren’t happy with the “we talk about all bay are teams” line the station has thrown out there since the format change to all sports in april of 2011.
at the very least this gives another chance for 95.7 to prove itself as a sports radio station for at least another year or two?
@letsgoas–Last September,KNBR extended their contract with the 49ers through 2023. It seems they’re ok being the second banana at “The Leader”
I’d think that 95.7 needs the Raiders much more than the Raiders need 95.7. For baseball, I listen to more A’s games than I watch on TV each season. 95.7 is essential for my enjoyment of the baseball season. Given the relatively few regular season NFL games, a vast majority of Raider games would be watched on TV as opposed to radio. In any case, social media killed any value sports radio ever had in providing legitimate sports news/coverage. Watching 95.7 struggle to gain traction is like watching
To be fair, even during the glory years, the 49ers radio broadcast network was on news-talk stations (KPIX and KGO). At least recently they’ve been on a true sportsradio station (since ’05), even though yeah, most of the time (other than Nov-Feb) the 49ers are 2nd fiddle to the Giants.
“We’re in intense discussions with all relevant parties,” Selig 4/25 on getting the A’s to San Jose. Might not hear a decision soon, but they’re working on it and the status quo won’t last forever..
Tony, where is that Selig quote from?
@Jeffrey,
MLB.com
At least the discussion for the A’s move to SJ was brought up. Other than that it’s business as usual for MLB.
See, that’s the 567th proclamation that a “San Jose announcement is imminent.” Give or take a few dozen
Uhh, no, not really Rob. But go ahead, keep trolling…
As a niners fan, this makes me somewhat sad. That said, I listen to every Raiders game as well as every 49ers game because Greg Papa is the best play by play guy in football (runs circles around Ted Robinson).
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I want two healthy franchises here in the Bay Area, and this is a great way to get there for the Raiders (part of a path to getting there, obviously not the only part).
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I also think this is tremendous for 95.7. I wish they could have secured the rights to the Warriors. KNBR has relied on Giants fans for ever, leaving all of us other fans sort of wanting something else. 95.7 should be tapping into these other fanbases as much as they can.
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A great mix for them would be programming focused on the A’s, Raiders, Dubs and Sharks (since they have them on a sister station). They can make up for the lack of “huge” fan bases for 3 of those 4 by fostering the passion that exists in each, and growing those fan bases over time will mean the station grows.
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If I was them, I’d ditch all Giants themed anything this off season. There is already an outlet for that and it draws way better there than it ever will on 95.7. There’s an opportunity cost associated with devoting time to the Giants when it could be dedicated to one of these other teams that have no other outlet.
This is a major upgrade for 95.7 the Game, because at least we know that it won’t go off the air next year, but I’m sure their affiliated stations will re-up with the Raiders since in SoCal, they are on KLAA AM 830, the Halos flagship and home station. The Game should stay through at least 2019-2020.
wonder what kind of raiders related programming they will have during the week. will they have weekly interviews with mckenzie/allen like they did with baalke these last two years, which again i don’t know if they’ll discontinue at this point? they’ll probably interview a player or two during the week too though don’t know what players since most of the roster doesn’t have many reconizeable players anymore, maybe flynn and or mcfadden?
also do they bring over the raiders post game show “talent” from the past few seasons, which imo was a pretty bad post game show to begin with. think it was ross who is a talent up in sac’s 1140, former raider players atkinson/humm who’ve been with the pre/post game for it seems like over a decade now even dating back to when the raiders were on 1050 late 90s-early 00s, and then you have former knbr mcgowen.
do they promote tittle as pre/post game host who back in 2011 i think did most raider post game shows on 95.7 and he took phone calls which the raider post game show the past few years on 105.3 stopped doing for some reason. townsend is a chargers fan and has known to have hate on the raiders in the past so i doubt the station moves him to that job even though he was a great a’s pre/post game host and is really missed compared to what we have on the weekdays/nights.