We'll be back...

Due to some personal matters that have popped up in the past 10 days we haven't been able to keep up on the blog. We'll be down for the count throughout the weekend but plan to be back by the middle of next week...

Our take on Reghi's Dismissal

We promise this will be the end of the Michael Reghi talk...

This isn't Ohio Media Watch, and we couldn't dream of doing a better job of covering the Cleveland media than our friends at OMW already do. From here on out we'll try to stick to sports...

With that being said, the Cavaliers "firing" of Michael Reghi is absolutely ridiculous and inexcusable.

Reghi is widely considered one of the best play-by-play men in the entire NBA. His work with FSN Ohio and WUAB broadcasting Cavaliers games was held in such high regard that he was frequently asked to contribute to NBA TV.

As we initially reported, Reghi's dismissal was an order that came straight from the office of Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert.

We're not sure what disappoints us more: the knowledge that Reghi will no longer be calling Cavaliers games or the knowledge that Dan Gilbert obviously is not nearly as intelligent and "hands off" as we had initially thought.

When Gilbert took over the reigns of the Cavaliers in the spring of 2005, many compared him to the controversial owner of the Washington Redskins, Daniel Snyder.

Since his tenure as majority owner began, the prevailing concern amongst fans and media alike was the idea that Gilbert couldn't keep himself out of matters that shouldn't involve him. (Such concerns began to surface when Gilbert reportedly ordered then-coach Paul Silas to give forward Anderson Varajao more playing time.)

His firing of Paul Silas did nothing to squash these concerns.

His hot pursuit of Pistons coach Larry Brown scared Cavaliers fans even more.

Through all of this, we supported Gilbert. While hosting the morning show on sportstalkcleveland.com, we were one of the few voices in the Cleveland sports scene pleading with fans to give Gilbert a chance.

We believed his hiring of Mike Brown proved us correct.

We felt even better after he brought in Danny Ferry.

After an entire season of Gilbert sitting on the sidelines letting Brown and Ferry do their jobs, we believed that any prior concerns were rendered unnecessary.

Now, after the dismissal of Michael Reghi, we're not so sure about Dan Gilbert.

This was an instance of Dan Gilbert sticking his fingers where they didn't belong. He saw an opportunity to bring another one of his Detroit boys to Cleveland and continue to build "The Pistons - South."

As we initially reported, Gilbert and McLeod are friends from the days when Gilbert interned under McLeod at a television station in Detroit.

Utterly disgusting.

Dan Gilbert needs to learn how to build a successful franchise on his own. The people in Cleveland want nothing to do with the Pistons, their philosophies, gimmicks, or broadcasters that come from Detroit.

In the meantime, Fred McLeod now takes the reigns as the television voice of the Cavaliers. While we would certainly support any grass-roots effort to pressure the organization into rehiring Reghi, we doubt that any such efforts would be fruitful.

In that event, we all owe McLeod an opportunity to impress and make Cleveland his new home.

But we don't have to be pleased with the actions of Dan Gilbert...

IN RELATED REGHI NEWS:

The Cleveland Plain Dealer reports that Reghi will be a part of the Cleveland Browns coverage on FSN Ohio that was announced earlier today.

He is expected to host FSN Ohio's new nightly training camp show from Berea.

ALSO, chatter on internet message boards, as well as Kenny Roda's "Happy Hour" show on WKNR, has suggested that FSN Ohio's direct rival, Sportstime Ohio, may make a pitch to Reghi to join the upstart network which carries Indians games.

Although we have no direct source, what we have surmised through backchannels is that STO is not all that interested in bringing in Reghi. Jim Donovan is already the "voice" of the cable sports network and it is unlikely that STO would have enough work to entice Reghi to leave his limited duties at FSN Ohio.

Some of raised the possibility of Reghi "pulling a Fred McLeod" and taking John Sanders position as the lead play-by-play man on Indians broadcasts.

What we hear through backchannels, coupled with the "good ol' boys club" atmosphere that surrounds the Indians organization and their cable network, makes the possibility of Reghi taking Sanders job extremely unlikely.

We also believe STO has other ideas in mind for whatever Cavaliers coverage they may unveil later this fall...

(NOTE: Reghi has released a press release regarding his dismissal. When we get our hands on it we'll publish it here)

Reghi Update II

We've learned that in light of today's news regarding Michael Reghi being removed as television play-by-play voice of the Cavaliers, WKNR afternoon host and Reghi's good friend Kenny Roda is expected to "spill the beans" on the Reghi situation at the top of his "Happy Hour" show this afternoon at 3:00.

You can listen to Roda online at wknr.com.

We'll have our reaction to this fiasco later in the day.

In the meantime, we'd like to make it clear that NONE of the information we've been passing along has come from directly from Reghi himself or anyone who works for FSN Ohio or the Cavaliers. We do have other sources close to the situation who have checked out over and over again as more developments have been made available.

For the record, although we DID have the pleasure of holding a few discussions with Reghi in the Cavaliers media room at The Q during the 2005-2006 season, we doubt that Reghi would be able to identify us in a group of people. All we know him as is the outstanding television play-by-play man for the Cavaliers for the past 12 seasons and an all-around stand up guy.

We're disappointed in this move, regardless of where it came from, and look forward to hearing the entire story during Kenny Roda's show later on today.

Reghi Update

UPDATE: 8-2-06 11:54am
We're getting confirmation from an extremely reliable source inside Cleveland media circles that Michael Reghi has indeed been pushed out of the Cavaliers' play-by-play job on FSN Ohio by Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert. Former Detroit Piston play-by-play man for FSN Detroit and WDIV-TV 4 sports anchor Fred McLeod will indeed take over the Cavaliers play-by-play duties.

In addition to our source, the Cleveland Plain Dealer's Roger Brown is also now reporting the story.

We're slowly getting more information on the rationale behind this decision. As inintially speculated, this is strictly an instance of Gilbert forcing the hand of FSN Ohio. Sources close to the situation tell us that Gilbert actually interned for Fred McLeod years ago in Detroit, hence his interest in having McLeod take over the Cavaliers television play-by-play.

Still, this is not a sound decision by Gilbert and should be met with a great deal of backlash from Cavaliers fans and Reghi supporters.

In a related note, it looks like while the play-by-play portion of Reghi's contract with FSN Ohio has been bought out, he will stay with the cable network in the immediate future. Wednesday morning FSN Ohio announced a new agreement with the Cleveland Browns to broadcast team related programming. Apparently Reghi WILL be a part of FSN Ohio's Browns coverage.

We'll post more as it comes in...

FSN Ohio Fires Reghi !!! (or is it Dan Gilbert???)

UPDATE: 8-2-06 10:10am
Sometimes things hit you out of the clear blue.

The unthinkable happens.

You get completely blindsided.

Such is the case for many Cleveland Cavaliers fans, after getting word that the television voice of the Cavaliers for the past 12 seasons, Michael Reghi, has been bought out by FSN Ohio.

He will reportedly be replaced with the Detroit Pistons television play-by-play man for the past 23 years on FSN Detroit, Fred McLeod.

McLeod also works as a sports anchor for WDIV Channel 4 (NBC) in Detroit.

Now the Detroit Free Press is reporting that McLeod will leave both his postitions in Detroit to "pursue a job with the Cavaliers."

Shocking.

Reghi seemed to have as safe a job as anyone in the industry. Broadcasting an entire slate of games for an up-and-coming Cavaliers team that included LeBron James gave him a great deal of national exposure on ESPN's SportsCenter. His voice was also featured on one of LeBron's Nike Commercials.

His work with FSN Ohio and WUAB for the past 12 years was held in high regard. A frequent contributor on NBA TV, Reghi is widely believed one of the best play-by-play men in the entire NBA.

So why in the world would FSN Ohio let him go out of the clear blue?

Let's back-track for a moment and attempt to make some sense out of this.

In the wake of losing the rights to broadcast Cleveland Indians games to the upstart Sportstime Ohio this past winter, the rights to broadcast Cleveland Cavaliers games became all the more crucial for the success of FSN Ohio.

The current contract between FSN Ohio and the Cavaliers is set to expire following the 2006-2007 season, meaning contract negotiations were set to begin earlier this summer.

Apparently they did.

As reported by Roger Brown in Monday's Cleveland Plain Dealer, FSN Ohio and the Cavaliers are close to announcing an extension to their broadcast agreement beyond the 2006-2007 NBA season.

The agreement will reportedly make FSN Ohio the sole provider of Cavaliers broadcasts locally in 2008, absorbing WUAB Channel 43's portion of the pie.

Considering FSN Ohio's "desperation" to get an extension with the Cavaliers, it is likely that Gilbert and the Cavaliers had a great deal of leverage during their negotiations with FSN.

Because of this, Gilbert had the opportunity to make an odd request an integral piece on the negotiating table. That odd request? The removal of Michael Reghi.

Why did Gilbert and company want Reghi removed? That is anyone's guess. We're guessing Gilbert's familiarity with and fondness of Fred McLeod had something to do with it.

Remember, Gilbert is a native Detroiter and huge Pistons fan. Both his companies, Rock Financial and Quicken Loans are headquartered in the motor city and he still maintains a permanent residence there.

It's no secret that Gilbert has attempted to make the Cavaliers his version of "The Pistons - South." His efforts began last summer with the well-documented recruitment of then-Piston's coach Larry Brown to come to Cleveland to take over Cavaliers' basketball operations.

After Brown vehemently denied the rumors connecting him to the Cavaliers during the Piston's march to the NBA finals, Gilbert eventually settled on Danny Ferry as his general manager and retained current club president Len Kameroski.

During the 2005 offseason Gilbert also did some housekeeping with the in-game entertainment. One of those moves was the hiring of Ronnie Duncan to do public address announcing.

Duncan sounded incredibly similar to Piston's public address announcer John Mason from the very start.

Ironically, amidst recent rumors that Duncan has been dismissed by the organization after only one season (apparently LeBron James couldn't stand him) more rumors are surfacing that Gilbert is now recruiting Mason himself to move to Cleveland and take over the Cavaliers public address duties.

Now back to Reghi. It is well documented that Gilbert likes to have his people in place, and unfortunately Reghi was doing play-by-play for the Cavs long before Gilbert even looked into purchasing the Cavaliers.

Now while Gilbert is not directly responsible for the hiring and firing of the broadcast crew, it is likely that he was able to exercise a great deal of influence due to FSN Ohio's desperation to get a deal done.

As for discounting other theories, such as Reghi getting a gig with ESPN, we don't find it too difficult.

While getting a network job is glorious for broadcasters, many of them maintain their current employment in a local market. Joe Buck still broadcasts St. Louis Cardinals games, Jon Miller is still the voice of the San Francisco Giants while Ian Eagle serves many roles for CBS while also broadcasting New Jersey Nets games.

Having an understanding of Reghi's close ties to the Cavaliers and roots in the Cleveland area, we find it difficult to believe this divorce is one of his choosing.

As for FSN Ohio, we also doubt this announcer switch was a call coming from Steve Liverani and their higher-ups.

It has been reported that FSN Ohio has an agreement with the Cleveland Browns in place to produce some Browns related programming during the week. Reghi was frequently mentioned within media circles as a part of the FSN Ohio team that would be hosting some of the Browns programming. Local reporters have even spoke to Reghi recently about his involvement in the FSN Ohio/Browns project and the development of a new Browns show which he was scheduled to host.

We find it hard to believe FSN Ohio would get the ball rolling with Michael Reghi and a new Browns show if it was in their long term plans to fire him.

This is obviously an ongoing story. We'll have more as information becomes available.

Regardless of the reasoning behind this switch, there's no doubt that many of us will miss Michael Reghi's unique execution of the English language on Cavaliers broadcasts.