Courtesy St. Louis Post Dispatch

(February 12, 2010) Two more incidents in recent days added to the chaos surrounding broadcast coverage of St. Louis University's men's basketball team in what already has been a rinky-dink performance this season from the radio-TV standpoint.

First, the radio crew missed a game, then the telecast of another contest was bungled.

Radio announcers Bob Ramsey and Earl Austin Jr. didn't get to the game at La Salle on Saturday because a major snowstorm hit the region the night before the contest and paralyzed the Philadelphia airport. The team arrived in time to beat the weather, but not the broadcasters. WXOS (101.1 FM) ended up hiring a Philly crew to call the contest.

Ramsey said he and Austin explored flying to New York and taking a train to the game, but that rail service was suspended. He said they also considered flying to New York and renting a car for the roughly 90-mile ride but decided a drive was too risky. This comes a few weeks after the broadcasters were late for a game in Pittsburgh (vs. Duquesne) — also because of travel woes — forcing the Duquesne feed to be used for a while.
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"You can't really get mad at anyone — St. Louis isn't a hub (for airlines) anymore,'' said Ramsey, who also is co-host of WXOS' afternoon drive time show. "You don't have many options other than going two days early."

That would entail him missing two of his regular programs — hardly an ideal alternative. But that could change, SLU athletics director Chris May said.

"The (broadcasters) select their travel times, and I talked to Bob about it and I think he's looking at how he can adjust his and Earl's travel to make sure they're covered," May said. "I had asked Bob a month ago, and he said he hadn't had a problem" in his 24 seasons broadcasting the Bills. "We'll sit down at the end of the season and say, 'Do we need to change anything?'"

Ramsey said he never before had missed a SLU game he had been scheduled to work

"It's frustrating," he said. "I was really stressed. I'm still sick about missing the La Salle game."

WXOS program director Jason Barrett said the station pays the broadcasters and the travel expenses are shared with the school. He called the late arrival "embarrassing'' and the snow-out "frustrating.''

"Ideally they would have traveled with the team," but that isn't the setup all the time now because the team flies commercial extensively now, he said. "We never like to not have our guys there."

Added May: "It's definitely important,'' to have Ramsey and Austin on hand for games in their entirety. "They do a great job of promoting the program."

The weather cleared in time for the broadcasters to reach Philly for SLU's game there Tuesday, vs. St. Joseph's. But those who planned to watch Charter cable's telecast of the contest were shut out for much of the action because of "technical difficulties."

Making matters even more laughable was that viewers were not told of a problem until well into an informercial that was on instead. Charter finally showed a graphic saying the game would not air because of technical difficulties. But it ended up showing the latter part of the contest.

It's hard to imagine many viewers wading through the avalanche of infomercials while hoping that the game suddenly would appear after being told it would not. Adding to the annoyance level for many Bills fans is that five SLU games were placed on Charter — which a lot of SLU supporters don't have — because of the Atlantic 10 Conference's restrictive TV policy.

In a normal season one of these broadcast incidents would have been ugly, but could have been written off as bad luck. But the combination of three bungled broadcasts, added to coach Rick Majerus refusing to do his radio show as scheduled, creating much controversy, makes the operation look cheesy.

It's nearly impossible to imagine such a string of difficulties happening to the Cardinals, Rams, Blues, Mizzou or Illini broadcasts. All this, plus the Majerus mess, underscores what this SLU program is to many St. Louis sports fans — an afterthought.

Although May said the Charter problem has been rectified for its remaining two SLU telecasts and added that more games probably will be televised next year on more widely available outlets and the radio travel will be re-evaluated, the recent developments are minor-league indeed.

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