In the early years of The Ticket, they did the X's and O's and took tons of calls. But Rhyner and Williams realized they were going nowhere. "We recognized a long time ago that if you do hardcore sports you will have a very small audience," said Williams, 42. "We would spend all sorts of time, researching some sports point, and it would fall flat. When we would start talking about some movie we saw or what our dogs had done, that's what people remembered and wanted to talk about." What The Ticket folks realized in those early years was that the sports media catering to the male audience was changing. The Internet gave fans all the information that the radio hosts had, so the hosts couldn't fall back on the "call the sports brain" format. Likewise, the explosion of sports media, where cable was carrying hundreds of games every week and providing hour-long sports news shows like ESPN's "Sportscenter," gave listeners an overload of sports information. If you were going to be successful in sports radio, you had to get a little outside the box. The Ticket was one of the first radio stations to see this trend, and perhaps the most unlikely. They had a puny 5,000-watt signal, were broadcasting none of the Dallas professional sports teams' games, and faced stiff competition from Randy Galloway at WBAP-AM and Hitzges and company at KLIF-AM. Galloway still draws good numbers, but he now seems anachronistic, aimed at some 60-year-old rancher in Stephenville. KLIF has been blown apart, and Hitzges has defected to The Ticket. And The Ticket has solved its signal problems by simulcasting on KTBK 1700 AM and KTCK 104.1 FM. What the Ticket did was ride the wave, and in some ways define the wave, of the new male-centered media. Juts think of what passes for sports media these days. Comedian Jay Mohr is doing a sports show on ESPN TV. Fox Sports trots out "The Best Damn Sports Show Period," where comedian Tom Arnold makes jokes about former baseball player John Kruk's one testicle. Terry Bradshaw plays yuk monkey on Fox's NFL pre-game TV show. Some writers have referred to this trend as "Frat Boy Nation." All those "laddie" magazines like Maxim, FHM, and Stuff are making tons of money in a poor ad market by trotting out bimbos, beer, and sports. Comedy Central's "The Man Show" follows the same formula. The "E" cable network does its "Wild On" show, which is little more than an excuse to film topless chicks sunbathing in the south of France. Let's not even get into the popularity of the "Girls Gone Wild" videos. So if this is a Frat Boy Nation we live in, then The Ticket is the alpha chapter and has one of the biggest and rowdiest houses on campus. But what they do goes beyond titillation. I don't like to call what they do "guy talk" because it's not aimless and it's not whining. Their humor is often edgy and smart, at times sounding like audio Dadaism. They are independent enough to poke fun at the sports teams they cover, and the hosts are, for the most part, likable. "What they do is not easy, but they make it seem that way," said Rick Scott, a sports- talk radio consultant in Seattle who does some consulting for The Ticket. "They are looked at as a model in the business because they do things in a smart way. It's not easy to be funny and knowledgeable and friendly to the listener without working at it. These guys work hard at it." It's hard to explain in print what's so funny -- assuming locker-room humor that demeans various groups of people ever makes you laugh. Corby Davidson does a bit called the overcusser, where he asks questions of an athlete, such as, "Do you ever wake up in the morning, and say, 'I'm Rusty Fucking Greer, and I'm a fucking baseball player for the Texas Fucking Rangers?' " The goal is to get the athlete to start cussing back. Another bit is Burrito Jimmy, a fake FM radio host who entices sports-radio hosts to his show and then ambushes the poor guys. When the Mavs were playing the Kings in the playoffs, The Ticket hosts enticed a Sacramento sports radio guy to come on the air. They took staged calls from other Ticket hosts masquerading as real callers. One asked the poor guy from Sacramento, "Is Hedu Turkoglu the first NBA player with Down's Syndrome?" I loved the fake Jason Kidd singing "I'm just a mulatto, trying to get some el gato." I loved the fake Jerry Narron, who speaks so slowly he seems to fall asleep between sentences. I loved the "12-Pounder" song, a send-up about the weight of Rangers' and Stars' owner Tom Hicks' penis. I loved when they asked Rangers players if the reason Viagra spokesman Raphael Palmeiro was playing so well in spring training was because of the "harder wood" in his bat. If you don't listen to The Ticket, you're probably wondering what's so funny. But if you listen, you're probably laughing your ass off right now.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I must admit that I am a P1 fan of the station. But in the interest of shock value, a basic tenet of Ticket broadcasting, I will tell those of you who aren't P1's some of the station's darker moments: • The Hot Spot, The Ticket's early- evening show, does a bit called the "Hey Man, What's Up Rodeo." A show staff member goes to a local park where gay men hook up and tries to draw interest, sort of a gay prick-tease. They start a clock when the words "Hey man, what's up" are uttered. The one with the longest "ride," meaning the time spent keeping the conversation going with lots of gay sex talk, wins. It is taped with hidden microphones. • The Hardline like to discuss what they refer to as the FUPA. That stands for "Fat Upper Pussy Area" and refers to the female paunch between the navel and the nether regions. A woman who has a FUPA is also usually "tore up." They also discuss "grooming issues" which refers to a woman's pubic area. • BaD Radio, with Bob Sturm and Dan McDowell, asks the hypothetical question, "Gay or Not Gay?" Two men shopping for groceries together and pushing a shared cart is gay. Owning a poodle, like McDowell does, is also gay. Patting another man on the rear end during a sporting event is not gay. Watching "Friends" on tv -- definitely gay. |
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