Just as Cumulus gets ready to move four of its stations — The Ticket, KLIF, i93, and The Wolf — to Victory Plaza, 105.3 The Fan decides to open a restaurant right in The Ticket’s new backyard. The 8,000-square-foot Fan Sports Lounge, located on Olive Street in Victory Park, is having its grand opening tonight. When asked about this development, Ticket management told me they have no official comment.
My question: shouldn’t The Ticket have thought of this already? When they decided to move to Victory, why didn’t they create some sort of broadcast-studio-sports-bar hybrid, where you could have a beer before a game at the AAC and watch the Ticket hosts do their show — then do the same after the game? Oops.
18 comments
Speculation – Because there is going to be some kind of outdoor broadcast patio, or whatever you want to call it, at Cumulus’ new digs in Victory, and they don’t want to tack on an additional, duplicative piece of expensive rent?
The restaurant/bar remote seems to be the bread & butter of the ticket’s afternoons. Why would they enter into direct competition with their advertisers?
A Cumulus station…
i’m intrigued by this simple for the sake of having another place for pre and post game drinks.
The Power of Radio!
isn’t it opening in a failed sports bar? restaurants don’t work down there, especially over priced sports bars. even with the added “extra” of the Fan broadcasts. this place, and quite possibly, the station will be gone within 18 months. It’s not owned by the Fan btw. Owned and operated by Bill Teague
I’m a huge P1 and I have to admit I’ve been here a few times to watch Ranger playoff games… The service was good, food was great and the place is pretty cool! I would go here to watch games for sure- but it’s not enough to make me switch from The Little Ticket. For the sake of Victory Park I hope this place makes it, but if not I’ll give it a touching tribute by shouting “Stay Hard Fan Sports Lounge”…
A wonderful addition to the bragging montage would be Corby inevitably saying something along the lines of “I finally have a sports bar named in my honor.”
Cumulus is a large company with high paid thinkers. I guarantee the thought was thrown against the wall. The problem is the idea will fail. Rent is way too expensive and the traffic way too light. Unless there is a concert or game the place is a ghost town. The Sports Lounge might last a year. Six months if the NBA Lockout continues. It is not an “oops” for Cumulus. They are probably high fiving.
Done what exactly, get into the bar/restaurant business? I have a feeling that Cumulus shareholders would be far from thrilled that they were entering the bar/restaurant business.
Bill Teague however is in the restaurant business, as to the reasons why he decided to license The Fan brand instead of the Ticket based on availability, cost or personal preference, well, that’s a question for him.
My suggestion would be for you to walk down to Wick’s office, knock on his door and tell him you heard about some available bar/restaurant space in Uptown and ask him why he hasn’t opened the D Magazine Bar & Grill & Botox Clinic.
I guess if The Ticket wanted to go into the restaurant business like this, they could still open a bar in Arlington. Then they would have both sports venues locked down. IJS.
Id say, opening a bar in a part of town that might get frequented 41 times this year by stars fans, that this is set up for abject failure. And while the fan may get a bump from it name being on the bar, when the owner shuts it down because it fails, people wont remember the owners name they will laugh and say the Fan bar that failed. Its a mighty fine line cbs is walking there.
I spent the week checking out Randy Galloway & Friends and then The Fan. It made me realize why I stick with The Ticket. I don’t care about sports talk. How can anyone sit around talking about sports for hours?
I listen to The Ticket for non-sports. When they talk sports, I just switch over to NPR. I remember a few years ago when The Ticket spent the day talking about sports to make some complainers happy. Listening to Gordon Keith break down the Vancouver Grizzlies’ draft was hilarious. “Swift has a lot of upside.”
I am rambling. But the other stations might be more successful if they got rid of sports part of the day. You can only talk about play action passes for so long.
Wait….the fan is still on the air???
The food is awesome and the women are hot. I’ll be back
Cumulus has six stations, not four- you forgot KSCS and WBAP.
I hope it works out. It would be nice to see something stick in Victory Plaza.
Time will tell if this venture will be successful or not. For the Fan Sports Lounge, the sooner the Mavs season returns the better for them. If the food is good and drink prices are affordable they’ll do well. The potential is there. Best of luck Fan Sports Lounge!
The food and service is great. Very nice bar to relax and have a few drinks.