Jock Itch The sports talk dial just birthed another notch

That rumble you hear is not a gaggle of reporters tripping over each other to gaze into Tim Tebow’s dreamy eyes. It’s the shakeup happening in the sports-radio scene in Denver. And after this week, an astonishing fourth sports-talk station will join an already teeming talk scene to battle it out for the attention of the sports-mad Denver populace. With time slots changing and sports talkers switching sides faster than an NBA free agent, the radio dial will demand your attention as Denver makes a case for being the nation’s most lively sports market.

The folks behind FM 102.3 apparently feel that three sports talk radio stations are just not enough to keep Denver sports fans happy—so much so that they’ve stolen away Vic Lombardi and Gary Miller from their old gig at ESPN 1600 and installed them as the leadoff show for the launch this week. With backing from ESPN’s Adam Schefter and a bona fide football savant in Footballguys.com’s Cecil Lammey taking a few shifts, 102.3 has such a bounty of talent that it makes you wonder if some of the other stations are looking over their shoulders yet.

One local sports-radio personality is not sweating the addition of yet another sports talk station, though: Renaud Notaro, a fixture on Mile High Sports Radio AM 1510, welcomes the competition, even if it’s unclear whether Denver can handle yet another sports talk station. “We can handle it. It’s whether that station can handle us,” he said. “I’m confident in my ability, and the more the merrier. More competition makes everyone better. I’m not worried about it.”

The fact that Notaro is stepping out for his own show on AM 1510 starting on July 26 called Elephants In The Room seems to prove that. He will be joined weekdays 1-3 p.m. by ex-CU Buff lineman Karl “Hungus” Allis, prompting the "Elephants" moniker because, well, he and Allis are two huge dudes. Big-boned or not, Notaro promises a good show. “We’re going to talk all the local sports because I’m at everything—Broncos, Nuggets, Rockies, and Avs,” he said. “We’ll have the best guests. McDaniels, Tulo, Jim Tracy, and we’ll mix in some pop culture. It’s not going to be a break-down-stats kind of show. It will be fun because sports are fun and we’re all fans at heart and that’s what people want to hear.”

Also moving to new digs is ex-Bronco and current ESPN analyst Mark Schlereth. Before any of the radio wife-swapping with the stations began, The Fan (FM 104.3) made a preemptive strike by wisely adding Schlereth to its Al And D-Mac show (weekdays 4-7 p.m.). Schlereth is nearly as good a broadcaster as he was an offensive lineman, so he should at least make the wayward strip-club DJ stylings of The Fan’s D-Mac tolerable when he joins him on Aug.  2. 

KEPN (ESPN 1600) may be the odd man out in this fearsome foursome. The only local programming that remains is from the lovable grandfathers of Denver sports, Irv and Joe (2-5 p.m.). And while the nationally syndicated Dan Patrick show may be KEPN’s necessary antidote to the horrific Mike And Mike In The Morning over at The Fan, I would much rather hear the local guys on AM 1510 talk Rockies than listen to the East Coast lovefest on those other stations. How KEPN counters these new challenges may be the more compelling thing to watch.

Still, between the four stations, only one broadcasts local pro teams. AM 1510 has the Nuggets and the Avalanche while Limbaugh-laden talk channel KOA hogs the Broncos, Rockies, and CU. This poses a major challenge to the likes of FM 102.3 and The Fan, which seem to be presenting themselves as local champions of the Colorado sports scene. 

What is clear is that you, the sports fan, will now have a glut of choices in your sports chatter, which goes a long way in making the case for Colorado’s sports supremacy. Notaro agreed: “This is a great sport city. I don’t care what anyone says.” This proves that despite what transplanted Packers and Red Sox fans think, Colorado is quietly becoming the center of the sports universe. At least on the radio dial for the next couple of weeks anyway.