Sampsell, who was laid off by the Fox-owned station 20 months ago, is moving to the Bahamas as program director of the island's first sports-talk station — in fact, he said, its first talk station of any genre.

Sampsell arrives in Nassau this month, and the station will launch this year on the air and on the Web.

He will be the only U.S. import on the station.

“It will be like walking on the moon,” he said. “It will be the first of its kind in the Bahamas, so we'll be making new footprints.

“The idea is to give people a chance to call in for the first time and participate, to talk about sports and to expose them to U.S. athletes and coaches.

“It will end up being what we make of it.”

Sampsell, a native of Seattle who has lived in Houston for a decade, has had a rough go of it since he was caught in Channel 26's layoffs but said he is grateful for the chance to work with Mark Berman, Keith Calkins and their colleagues.

“I fulfilled a couple of my goals in covering a Super Bowl and a World Series,” he said. “I consider this a second home, and I did a lot of things here that I'm proud of. A lot of good things happened to me here.”

Now, he said, “I have a chance to leave a legacy” by taking sports talk to new climes.