Lance Zierlein is back or IS HE?

Written By: Lamont

Early Wednesday morning, Lance Zierlein dropped the news, he's returning to radio.  Not only is he returning to radio but he's partnering  up with his long time cohost/friend John Granato.

• John and Lance 7-9a
• John and Raheel 9-11a
• Raheel and  Del 11-1p
• Barry and Joel 1-4p
• Fred and AJ  4-7p

Mad Props to Raheel and Del getting their own show. 

THOUGHTS

When Lance announced his radio sabbatical by leaving Sports Talk 790, I instantly thought

• The whole original plan was for Josh Innes to assume the Morning Show
• Lance will exhaust his non compete and eventually land back with John Granato

Lance returning to radio was a bigger open secret than Hollywood #RapeGate. Everyone knew this was coming.

That said, is Lance really back?  Over the last four or five years, I could tell,  Lance was not totally into radio. It appeared, he was burnt out.  It didn't appear to be his passion anymore.  A part of me believes with other people entering the market doing what Lance was known for (football analysis) soured him.

It's tricky because Lance has worked morning radio for over 20 yrs so one can suggest he was tired or needed a break.  In addition to, over the last few years Lance picked up a gig on NFL Network as a draft analyst.  Then there's the wildcard of Lance no longer wanting to be at Sports Talk 790 all together.  Either way, the last few years, Lance has not been into radio from a fan's perspective.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN

I believe Josh Innes Show will continue to roll.  Few  have asked me if Josh will go after Lance.  I doubt it.   Josh and Lance appear to be cool and Josh has sort of changed his style. He goes after Sports Radio 610 because he hates their management and he knows SR 610 is the big fish.

With over half of the Texans season over and Texans interest dwindling, MAD Radio may take a hit as past "Gamers" will gravitate back to GOW. This is hard to explain but like Obama supporters will never "fill" Trump, many of Lance fans will never support Josh Innes.  Josh Innes went after Lance hard during his first stint while employed at SR610.  With only 2 morning local shows in MAD Radio and Josh Innes, lots of Josh fans went over to Mad Radio.  Now Lance has returned, many of those fans will go back to Lance and John.

EXPECTATIONS

If and only IF Lance is totally in, John and Lance will become the flagship show thereby bumping Fred Faour and AJ The Blitz off of their pedestal.

Basically, everything is predicated on Lance's commitment to radio.

But lets talk about their show's name, THE BENCH?  The 1990s want this name back.  LOL, when I first seen the name of the show, I laughed uncontrollably.  The shit seems like something from 1997.   If I am not mistaken, Lance mentioned he had a show named The bench when he first got into radio in 1972. #BOOM  

All jokes aside, I believe Granato and Lance will make it do what it do and I cannot wait to hear them  recreate magic.