Stop the radio music! According to multiple sources late yesterday, the Yankees have, at least for one more season, chosen to remain on WCBS 880 AM, rejecting ESPN’s offer to buy team radio rights.
A move to ESPN would have placed the Yankees on ESPN-NY’s new 98.7 FM — which on Saturday becomes the local station’s sole carrier, leaving 1050 AM (which soon will become an ESPN Spanish-language sports station).
Such a decision could sustain the team’s broadcast team of John Sterling and Suzyn Waldman.
That the Yankees apparently have temporarily spurned a bidding war — ESPN Radio is eager to land Yankees’ or Mets’ radio rights — is curious, given WCBS’s deal, for an unretrievable $12 million-$14 million per season, seemed to place moneyed ESPN Radio in what late Yankees radio man Red Barber called, “The Catbird Seat.”
CBS recently began the national CBS Sports Radio Network, and early seems to be throwing a lot of money and energy in its direction.