‘It still doesn’t make any sense to me’: Bob McCown on his exit from The Fan

TORONTO, CANADA - APRIL 13: Commissioner Rob Manfred is interviewed by sports talk show personality Bob McCown before the Tampa Bay Rays MLB game against the Toronto Blue Jays on April 13, 2015 at Rogers Centre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. (Photo by Tom Szczerbowski/Getty Images)
By Sean Fitz-Gerald
Dec 2, 2020

Almost 18 months have passed since Bob McCown left his familiar chair in the studio at Sportsnet 590 The Fan, where he spent a generation cultivating an audience as host of the afternoon drive show. He is still recognized on the streets of Toronto, and only sometimes to his chagrin.

“I still can’t go anywhere,” he said. “Grocery store. Gas station. With the pandemic on, I think I’ve been to a restaurant — when they were open — three or four times. I got stopped every time.”

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Most fans ask for a picture or an autograph. Some just say, “Hey Bob.”

“There’s the odd one who stops me — or tries — to chat,” said McCown. “I know how to get around that.”

He waited a beat, then continued.

“I try not to be disrespectful,” he said. “There are certain tricks. You’re always doing something. You’re on your way somewhere, and you really don’t have 15 minutes to stand and talk to somebody.”

His contractual obligations to talk about the Maple Leafs ended in June 2019, when he hosted his final show on a station he helped build. McCown did not know it at the time, but Sportsnet was launching a broad cost-cutting strategy that would ultimately lead several high-profile names out the door.

In an interview with The Athletic, the 68-year-old made it clear he did not resign his post, nor did he retire. He said he was bought out of the final 18 months of his contract — collecting the balance of what he was owed while sitting at home, rather than behind the microphone.

“I didn’t understand why they were doing it,” he said. “And it still doesn’t make any sense to me. But having said that, I respect their right to make those decisions, however dumb they may be.”

Sportsnet declined comment on Tuesday.

“I don’t know what they thought,” McCown said. “And to be honest with you, I didn’t ask. I was called into an office and told this is what’s going to happen. I went ‘OK.’”

He said he was told he could pick his exit date. He chose to leave within a couple of weeks.

“And then they wanted to have a celebration of my career,” he said. “I thought, ‘really? You want to celebrate my career, but you’re firing me?’ So I said no thank you.”

McCown hosted his final show on a Friday, at the end of the roundtable that usually marked the end of the week for the host. He thanked his co-hosts, as well as production staff and guests. He thanked the company and his listeners, and signed off by saying: “My butt hurts, I’m gone, there will be no more — good night and goodbye from Toronto.”

In all, his on-air farewell lasted about 90 seconds.

“I understood it completely,” McCown said. “They literally decided to chop salaries. They made a list of who got paid the most, and they literally went down the list. I was at the top of that list, so I was really the first to go.”

Nick Kypreos left Sportsnet two months after McCown signed off. Doug MacLean and John Shannon, both regular contributors on the radio and on television, also parted ways with the company. Journalist Scott Morrison also left, while members of Sportsnet’s soccer coverage (James Sharman, Craig Forrest and John Molinaro) were gone by that September.

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“We weren’t just the talent — we were the product,” said McCown. “We were what they were selling. We were what made them money. And I don’t have to tell anybody what’s happened to the radio side … since that purge took place. It hasn’t been good.”

In March, just before the pandemic led to the shutdown of sports across the world, TSN 1050 beat The Fan with the morning and afternoon drive shows. It was the first time The Fan had lost a ratings battle in both of those critical time slots.

“The only thing that bothered me about it was, it made no sense,” McCown said. “Yes, I was highly paid. Yes, the show probably cost more than any other talk show in the country to put on the air. But it generated millions and millions in profit.”

There had been signs TSN’s afternoon drive show, OverDrive — with Bryan Hayes, Jamie McLennan and Jeff O’Neill — had been gaining traction before McCown left the air. He said he did not think the trend played a role in Sportsnet’s decision, noting the upstart show had not beaten him in a full ratings period.

“I can tell you this: I absolutely never felt threatened by what TSN was doing,” he said. “The truth of the matter was I never listened to them. I couldn’t because I was on the air opposite them. And I’m not saying their show isn’t good.

“I’m just saying you can analyze it however you want, but for a good portion of time, I beat them five to one, eight to one, 10 to one.”

McCown said he fielded four job offers after he left Sportsnet. He said two were from the United States and two were from Canada. Ultimately, he said none were attractive enough to lure him back to a full-time job.

“Every time my contract came up for renewal, I had to think about whether I wanted to keep doing it,” he said of The Fan. “Really, the honest-to-god truth was that, the decision invariably was: ‘They pay me too much money to not do it.’

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“So that sort of made my decision for me.”

There were days he loved his job, he said: “But it was a job, you know?”

He got to interview Muhammad Ali as part of that job. Legendary NFL running back Jim Brown was a guest in-studio. McCown turned into a news anchor for a week following the terrorist attacks in the U.S. in 2001, when The Fan abandoned sports to cover the events unfolding across the world.

When he lost his job, McCown said he spent a lot of time golfing. And then the father of four adult children started to get bored, so he became more active in some of his other pursuits.

McCown owns a production company (Fadoo Productions), a winery (Stoney Ridge Estate Winery), and a podcast (The Bob McCown Podcast). Shannon, the long-time colleague at Sportsnet, has been appearing as a co-host.

Former Blue Jays president Paul Beeston appeared as a guest in the show released on Tuesday. Ottawa Senators owner Eugene Melnyk has also appeared on the podcast, as has Raptors play-by-play voice Matt Devlin and former Leafs general manager Brian Burke.

In the videos posted to YouTube, McCown has been appearing in the trademark sunglasses that came to define his time at The Fan. The character he has often said he created for that show — brash, impatient, and prone to bouts of obnoxiousness — has also made appearances.

“Well,” he said, “I think it’s a modified version of the character.”

He is not 25 anymore, he said, so he does not feel he has to scream and yell into the microphone.

“I’m trying to be the same person on the podcast that I was when I was on the air,” he said. “Some percentage of that is normal/natural, and some percentage of it is manufactured.”

McCown said he has lost track of which percentage is which.

“Yeah,” he said with a chuckle. “I honestly don’t think about it. You just do it.”

(Photo: Tom Szczerbowski / Getty Images)

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