A Big Announcement

A new partnership with Rip City Radio.

If you missed the announcement when we made it on the air yesterday, I’ve joined the iHeart team and will be the Trail Blazers insider for Rip City Radio (620 AM), the team’s flagship station.

You can watch the full announcement here, around the 20-minute mark of yesterday’s Rip City Drive:

But I think it’s worth giving you, my subscribers, a little more info on what to expect both on air and here.

What is the job, exactly?

Essentially, the station wanted a more regular presence at team events (games, practices, community events, etc.) I’m already at all of those things and appear on Rip City Radio’s shows fairly regularly, so when iHeart came to me with the idea to make it an official partnership, it made a lot of sense.

I’m going to be doing a weekly segment on each of the station’s two local shows, Rip City Mornings with Justin Myers and Rip City Drive with Dwight Jaynes and Chad Doing. I’m also going to be recording short videos before and after games for the station’s social-media channels (which you should follow on Twitter and Instagram). Occasionally, I’ll sit in with my friend Chris Burkhardt for road games when he hosts the pre- and postgame shows on the radio. There will be more, that we’re still figuring out, but that’s the big stuff.

Will this affect the Substack?

Not at all. In fact, the reason the station wanted me for this role is because they saw what I’ve built here and wanted me to keep doing it while also appearing more regularly on their airwaves.

Nothing about what I do here, or what I give to those of you who are my subscribers, will change at all. The writing and my approach to covering the team will stay the same. What you’ve gotten the past two seasons is what you’ll continue to get.

Will this compromise the independence of my coverage?

Also no. This is a very important distinction I have to make: the station is owned by iHeart, not by the team, and I will be an employee of iHeart. The team has a contract with the station to air their games on the radio. The details of that arrangement are between the station and the team, and that has nothing to do with me. The Blazers’ radio broadcast team (play-by-play announcer Travis Demers and color analyst Michael Holton) are employees of the team, just like their TV broadcasters are. I’ll do guest spots on pre- and postgame shows on the radio from time to time, but I’m not a part of the team’s radio broadcast in any official capacity. It’s a totally separate deal.

I did not have a single conversation with anybody who works for the Blazers during the interview process for this job. I wouldn’t have taken it if I would be employed by the team or if I was going to be expected to be a mouthpiece. That’s never been what I’ve been interested in. Over the past few years, I’ve been able to build good relationships with all of the higher-ups on both the business and basketball side of the organization because they know I’m going to be fair with them and not make anything personal, even if they don’t agree with every single thing I write. There are topics I’ve covered here that aren’t the most comfortable to write and report about—trade rumors, Chauncey Billups’ job status, the future of Blazers ownership—that I will continue to cover in the exact same way that I have.

If you’re not a paid subscriber, opening week is as good a time as any to get on board.