The Josh Innes Show - Radio Row Whiners

Episode Date: February 7, 2026

I haven't been to Super Bowl Radio Row since 2019. But, I enjoyed the opportunities I had to do it. Does it really help a station get ratings? No. I sort of view it as a reward for the guys. A free trip. Anywho, the people I don't get are the media dweebs who bitch about completely unrelatable things during that week. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Super Bowl tomorrow. I know I haven't really talked a lot about it because honestly, I haven't really been all that interested in it. I don't know if that's a bigger picture football problem or a bigger picture sports problem in general, but that's kind of how I am. I haven't been as passionate about sports overall in my life. And I don't know if that's everybody in the world

or if that's just, hey, this Super Bowl is a matchup with maybe people that there are players that the world doesn't care about. There's not a megastar involved. There's no wonderful storyline. I mean, what's the best storyline of the Super Bowl? I guess that Sam Darnold, who's left for dead by the Jets and Sam Darnold, who's just given away by the, Vikings after winning 14 games now is in the Super Bowl.

I mean, is that the best storyline of the Super Bowl, I guess? Is it the Patriots who had the greatest dynasty ever are now back again? Is it that Mike Vrable is the coach that also won Super Bowls with them as a player? The matchups, I guess, I'm talking about from just a storyline standpoint, are not the sexiest of matchups. But it is the Super Bowl. and 100 million plus people are going to watch it. So I understand, and I really despise the way media covers things and talks about things sometimes.

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chew toys, and 32 ounces of carpet cleaner. Hey, Jamal, you've been promoted to pack leader. Save the everyday. with deals from Amazon. Yeah, I really hate the way the media talks about things because they talk about things like they would talk about it with themselves, but they don't talk about it in ways that are relatable to actual people, right? Because I don't think these media people are actual people. They're not relatable people.

So what you get a lot of the times is people will say shit like, well, I don't know. Without Patrick Mahomes in the Super Bowl, this is just, this doesn't feel the same. like I still feel like the vast majority of people in the country are going to be watching the Super Bowl. Over a third of the population of America will be watching the Super Bowl. So, like, I understand that Patrick Mahomes not being there might be a turnoff for you or Josh Allen or Tom Brady, but like it's still the fucking Super Bowl. For me, mine's not a this matchup is not that sexy to me thing. this is more of a

I just don't know what my passion level is for it in general and just like I and that's kind of always been the case the Super Bowl has never interested me that much because it's the end of the road and it's more of a spectacle and the spectacle is bigger than the game itself so like I love the regular season

I love to watch football on a Sunday I love when there's 15 games on TV that you can flip back and forth I love all that shit. I love the playoffs. The fewer you get in the games, the less interested I become. Example, maybe the greatest example of that is the NCAA tournament. Like the first four days of the NCAA tournament,

even if you don't know a fucking thing about anybody playing, is outstanding. I mean, you know this. I don't have to sell it to you. You are well aware that the NCAA tournament, first two days particularly, but the first weekend of the tournament is great. People take off of work. People go sit at Buffalo Wild Wings for 10 hours and watch basketball. It's fun.

And you don't know a fucking thing about any of these teams. You don't have a clue. You don't know who plays for VCU. You don't know who plays for Duke for the most part. You don't know who plays. You might know one guy from Duke, one guy from Carolina, whoever the sexy guy is of that moment, whatever. You might know all those guys. But you don't know, like, hey, I'm thinking about betting on Northwestern State.

You don't know a fucking dude at Northwestern State. You don't have a fucking clue. But that's the fun of it. You look at the seating. You go, I think there's going to be a 12 over a 5 upset. I've got to take one. So I'm going to take, I don't know, nickel state to upset Miami today. And that's fun.

But I think I speak for the masses. That the least interesting day, days of the NCAA tournament are the final four and the national championship game. Like the last weekend of the NCAA tournament, the Saturday and the Monday. day is not interesting. People don't give a shit about the final four because you're running out of shit to pick and part of the fun is having shit to pick. And that's the same I think with football. And that's how I get with the World Series.

Although, I will say when you have a series involved, it's different. So if you've noticed, the two sports that I've said lose steam and I lose interest in whenever you get to the championship are two sports that only have one game. you have the NCAA championship and it's the same by the way in the college football playoff as well once you get to situations that don't have a series series are fucking phenomenal like I love a series I love the way the series plays out I love the arc of the series I love the ebbs and flows of a series I love the idea that the series doesn't really start until a road team wins like I love all that shit a one game thing is also such a

crap shoot then how many times do you believe that the one-off winner takes it all game involved in the series truly tells you what team is better. I mean, look, if you're looking for an example, and I am not a proponent of every stadium having a dome, I don't like the idea of stadiums having domes. I like that weather plays a factor. But Patriots and Broncos, that game was impacted in the second half by weather. The Bears game impacted by weather. You don't get the true blue definition of this team was better,

when they meet up in shitty conditions. That's why a seven-game series tells you. Look, is the NBA playoffs too long? Sure. But the NBA playoffs, which seems to last about as long as the regular season, the NBA playoffs is the best playoff because it truly does give you a real representation outside of, say, somebody getting hurt or something, of who the better team is. Seven games, I think you get enough of a sample size to know who the better team is.

Baseball gives you that weird two out of three series to start, which I guess I'm fine with. But two out of three doesn't tell you who's better either. Because two out of three, you might just have a team that's got two really good starters and they beat you two games and that's that. It doesn't reward a team for having five good starters or whatever. Again, I'm nitpicking here, but you get the point. So you go to the Super Bowl and the problem with the Super Bowl is that it's one game. The problem with the Super Bowl is that it's extremely corporate. The problem with the Super Bowl is it's everything around the Super Bowl that is more interesting than the game itself.

Now, you do get good games. There are epic games, and like, if your team's in it, you love the Super Bowl. But for me, the finality of just one game and it's over impacts my enjoyment of it. Like, I don't really care about baseball as much anymore. And admittedly, it's because my team is dreadful and we're going to have a work stoppage. And they have to find a way to keep cities like St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Detroit to a degree, although Detroit just spent some money. But, you know, those kind of cities, Kansas City, Tampa.

they have to find ways to keep these kind of cities that don't have Yankees cash and Dodgers cash and Mets cash and engaged. It's tough. But when the World Series rolls around, you got yourself a seven-game series. Like, at least it's something and it's a story and you get a week's worth of action out of it. Super Bowl, you get two weeks of build-up to a game that only a small percentage of the country has true rooting interest in. And they're more interested in the commercials and everything else. Then you throw in the fact that we've already seen the fucking commercial. I mean, at least that was kind of the fun part of it,

was at least with the commercials, you'd be like, hey, I want to tune in for the commercials, this is good. So you don't have rooting interest. There's a lot of shit to bet on, but you get just this. This is your only option. So it's not like week 17,

where there's 16 games to bet on. I don't know. It's just a, I find it, I don't know, it's different for me now. I view things differently than I used to. I'm just, I'm not as, I guess I've never been that way for the Super Bowl, though. Like, the Super Bowl has never been like, like, because at the end of it, it's just a game versus teams that outside of one time in my life, it's teams that I don't even care about. It's teams that I have no rooting interest in.

But again, 100 plus million people are going to watch it. So after all these media people, and the media people love to tell you about how the storylines aren't very good. You want to know what the worst is? And I know I'm kind of all over the place here talking about the Super Bowl and media and shit. But the worst is when you start dealing with the media people who bitch about the way things are laid out in the city the Super Bowl is in. It is the most unrelatable talking point that you could ever imagine. There's nothing less relatable than when you've got media guys who are on a free trip, by the way. A free trip to the Super Bowl.

Their company has paid for it. They're probably staying in a really nice hotel that no average person could. afford because the rates are ridiculous. They are, some of them may have a per diem, who knows, that their company is paying for all their meals. They get to sit around celebrities at Radio Row. You know, big tight, look, as bad as I might think Radio Row coverage is, and Radio Row coverage, for the most part, I think stinks.

Like, I'm seeing some of the videos people are posting, and it's like, cool, you got to meet this guy, but at the end of the day, like, the interview was boring. And I've never seen any sort of data that would indicate that the radio station benefits ratings-wise from Radio Row. Money-wise, you might make a couple extra bucks, which at the end of the day is all that really matters, but you don't have any ratings benefits to this at all. So you got that.

And then you start thinking about the fact that these people are on the year. They're meeting celebrities. They're going to parties, and the parties are pretty fucking cool. Like even the media party, and I haven't been in a while, but the media parties tend to be pretty cool. Outside of the one in Houston, that was at one of the museums, and that was dull. But one year, Miami were on the beach for the media.

party. We're at, oh, we went to the Indy 500 in Indianapolis and got to kiss the bricks. Where did we go in? New Orleans, it was just like at one of the, like, they went in at the convention center. I forgot where it was. But it was fun. Like, it is a, it basically, in a way, Radio Row was just a way to reward your dudes for, hey, job well done. We're paying for the trip. We got a sponsor for it. Like, that's how I always kind of viewed it because ratings-wise, it never did anything for us. And the content was never spectacular. So in a way, it's kind of like rewarding your guys by saying, hey, go have a fun week. When I see media people bitch about how difficult it is to get from place to place,

it just shows you how out of touch most of these people are. If they're not sitting there telling you that the Super Bowl is, without Patrick Mahomes, I'm just not all that interested in the Super Bowl. And then on top of that, they like to throw in the, well, you know, Radio Row is here, and the stadium is here, and the hotel. It's not really all that convenient for all. of us to get around and it's kind of tough. Fuck you.

Shove it up your ass. Eat shit. Eat shit. Because the average person will never experience any of that. The average person will never have the opportunity to sit on Radio Row and we can make fun of it all we want. But when the average person does hear that, oh, hey, Adam Sandler just walked up and sat down with you or Franco Harris just sat down with you or whomever.

Again, on the air, I think this shit sounds most. bad and I think most people don't enjoy it. But if you as a human had the opportunity to sit down, because I remember my first radio row I went to in Miami. When Adam Sandler and Kevin James sat down, I'm like, holy shit. It's fucking Adam Sandler. It's fucking Kevin

James. And they're just right there sitting at a fucking table with Rich Lord and Robert Hensley. Like, Rich Lord, Robert Hensley, and oh, by the way, face to face with fucking Adam Sandler. You found it from Adam Sandler. Do they meet him a second time at one of the radio rows?

too. Maybe we sat down with them twice. But anyway, because we didn't start doing, you found it until I was doing afternoons. Anyway, that doesn't matter because it just dawned on me that there is an Adam Sandler. You found it dropped. Nice as fucking guy, by the way. But the average person has no idea what that's like and will never experience that. And the average person will never experience what it's like to sit on Radio Row or to spend a week feeling like you're part of the fucking action. Like you're kind of this elite crew of people that gets to go from place to place and go to party.

and all this cool shit and feel like you are part of the end crowd. They'll never know what that's like. So if what you do when you open the mic at Radio Row is go, I don't know that San Francisco should ever have the Super Bowl again because it's kind of tough for us to get from place to place. Really, it should always be in New Orleans because everything is really close and it's great. And the stadium's here and the convention center's here.

They're like, shut up. These are people that will never get to experience that. They don't want to hear about the tree. Trials and Tribulations and the difficulty of being the beat writer that's on the radio covering the fucking Super Bowl, but it's tough for you because the hotel is too far away. Shut up. I fucking hate these people, man. They're just, they're delusional fucking people and they don't understand. My biggest problem is that people have no concept of how to relate to anybody.

Like, I'm going to, we're doing one of these bits where we, you know, go to someone's house for the Super Bowl. we're going to be there for a couple hours tomorrow. And, like, part of it's being relatable, right? Like, this person that won this, they want an 85-inch TV and 400 wings and 500 bucks and beer and all this shit. And I'm coming over and James coming over, hanging out. Like, I can't just sit there and be like, you got to be on. You got, like, you know what they expect of me if I'm coming to someone's house? They expect me to drink bush fucking lights and be a fun guy.

And you got to give them the old razzle-dazzle. Like, I can't sit there and just bitch for two hours that I'm there. You'll be like, fuck you. That's the worst part of these people. They are unrelatable slugs is all they are. Anyway, more to come.