Long time, no sports talk from former WHB powerhouse Kevin Kietzman…
Ah, but come September Kietzman will rise like a sports phoenix via a midday daily podcast covering not just sports but politics and life itself.
In the meantime, inquiring minds want to know, does Kietz think the Chiefs are going to have a full season?
“I believe so,” he says. “I can’t think of any reason not to. Did anybody notice the Kansas Shrine Bowl game – the annual Kansas high school seniors all-star game – was played last week in Topeka and they had 5,000 people there? And you’re telling me we couldn’t have had 5,000 at the Kansas Speedway last night. It holds 100,000 people, they could have easily put 20,000 in there. But the crazy people on the left didn’t/t know there was a football game last week, so it didn’t get any coverage.
Put another way, Kietzman thinks there will be live fans at Arrowhead.
“The last I heard the NFL will go state-by-state. I don’t think they’ll have 65,000 people, but they should be able to put 20,000 people in Arrowhead. So I’m hopeful of that.”
Kietzman’s take on the prospect of players putting messages like BLM on their helmets?
“I don’t think they’re going to make the same mistake the NBA did,” Kietzman says. “I gotta reserve judgement on the NFL, because I don’t know exactly what they will be doing. But if I were the NFL I’d keep the players in the locker room during the national anthem or just scrap the anthem altogether – just go play football.”
I have heard Kevin talk government and politics and it is my opinion (as a 30+ year government/poly sci teacher) that he should avoid this topic unless he educates himself more. Before commenting on government/politics he would always say “I am not an expert on this…” and he was right.
Who actually is an expert?
From the looks of things, being an expert is hardly a required skillset for people to 1) run and hold office and 2) have and offer up an opinion.
Were we to rely on “experts” the entire system would collapse…kinda like now
Keitzman always struck me as a bit of a charlatan….comes off as a Bob Hamilton for Congress type of guy/values but I remember the rumors of interns in the park and infidelity over the years were never ending. Not that interns and infidelity are a big deal in today’s world but don’t come off all preachy/family values and expect us to bite.
I enjoyed Keitzman’s take on sports in his 810 days (but turned the dial when he veered into politics or non sports rambles) but I will take a pass on his podcast if it is covering no sports bases.
Can not quite figure out how a guy who had ownership in 810 got forced out anyhow, especially after all the public groveling he did to try to stay and was somehow rejected anyway…
Allow me to address your questions and concerns this way, Dee:
It’/s complicated.
But I can tell you based on my covered of KK’s career, the tawdry stuff you refer to is waaaaaaay exaggerated,
Plus he will mostly be sports on the podcast, but having listened some top 610 Sports of late, this guys are all over the map on sports topics as well
What I find funny is someone saying KK isn’t an expert when he has all the requirements for some to be an expert.
He has years of experience with broadcasting journalism and radio. Makes him just as much of an expert to talk politics as Dana Wright, Scott Parks, and those two lame brains on KMBZ’s mid-day show. BTW isn’t the mid-day show on it’s fifth male co-host in three years?
I have top agree with Brian here…
Look, outside of the world of science and specific crafts, who then heck is an expert?
In talking to Kevin, I can assure you that he is certainly well read, up-to-date and quite capable of holding up a conversation and the topics we covered.
What made Kietzman interesting and different was that he veered off course quite often and took the listener into another place, another angle. He was not afraid to say what others could only think. His departure moved me over to Dana and Parks, which I am settling for. The KMBZ product from 10 am to 6 pm is very mediocre. In fact… I think Kevin has a better grip on what is going on in KC in general than the KMBZ talkers. He doesn’t fumble over the names of local or national leaders when talking about them. He has pretty good peripheral vision.
That KMBZ afternoon show may do relatively well in the ratings, but it came about by complete accident and once to either get satellite,ite radio or figure out how to Platte podcasts and shows like Saagar and Krystal on Hill TV, it becomes pretty much a needless waste of time.
I don’t buy that KMBZ does relatively well in the ratings. Not with all the firing in the last two years. If KMBZ is doing well, Kara Marxer, Rod Babcock and Jonathan Wier wouldn’t of been fired. If KMBZ was doing well, they wouldn’t be on their 3rd male mid-day host in three years.
I think they do, “Relatively well” is because there really isn’t any competition for them. Now 710 is starting to get their act together. Look for that, “Relatively Well” to look less well shortly.
Good points….I think relatively well was my attempt maybe to damn them with faint praise.
I’m very skeptical of radio ratings in general to put it charitably.
Particularly when they start breaking down the numbers into narrow demos.
Seems like KCMO is doing things right.
Doubt anything will happen anytime soon but I wonder what would happen if they landed KK once his radio non compete is up
KMBZ probably does OK in the mornings due to the fact they have traffic every 10 minutes with Johnny Rowlands et. al., and to a certain extent in the afternoon/evenings with Dana & Parks…which do best when they try to keep it light hearted and entertaining and because of traffic (which they should do every 10 minutes as well because we want to get home as quickly as possible). When they get on serious topics, whether local or national, I tune them out as their opinions seem not well informed. They do OK with some local issues as long as they are just interviewing a local person and leave their personal commentary out of it. But when I tune in on the way home, no other station is giving me traffic and/or news in a timely fashion.
That’s a pretty spot on assessment, Rick…
KMBZ’s longtime am drive news format has done well in most markets around the country, so nothing new or imaginative here.
However, I’ve found most of their personalities over the years to be a bit unctuous
Both Dana and Parks are refugees of jobs they were actually hired for and in Dana’s case – although she’s nice and I’ve always liked her – one that she struck out on. Parks took advantage to a management changeover at the station to insert himself into the on-air lineup on a on-the-job-training basic under Mike Shanin. He’d never have landed that gig had he been required to try out, rather than promote himself to the position when there was nobody running the station…and it shows.
Basically, it was his ticket out of having to get up at ridiculously early hours to be at the station for the morning drive when he was married and had a young child. The position went to his head and as I recall his marriage went south. Now he thinks he’s a stud and – I guess – more power to him.