Despite being more than 140 miles apart, there’s plenty of overlap when it comes to the topics covered by Cleveland and Columbus sports radio.
That includes Kirk Herbstreit, with hosts in the two Ohio cities now feuding over differing opinions regarding the ESPN analyst.
The entire ordeal started over the weekend with Herbstreit’s comment during the College Football Playoff selection show that Ohio State might have been better off playing its first-round matchup against Tennessee on the road to avoid boos from the home crowd. That prompted a response on Monday’s episode of 97.1 The Fan’s Common Man & T-Bone in Columbus, in which host Mike Ricordati stated, “I like how everybody’s just discovering now that Kirk Herbstreit is a douchebag.”
Ricordati’s comments appeared to catch the attention of 92.3 The Fan’s Anthony Lima. Taking to X on Monday evening, the Cleveland radio host replied with a dig at what he called “Columbus Homer Radio.”
The following morning, Ricordati’s co-host, Jonathan “T-Bone” Smith took to social media to issue his own response. Reposting an Awful Announcing story about his co-host’s comments, Smith urged his followers to, “please forward all of this to the Cleveland radio stations so they can have some content.”
“Lord knows they won’t talk about the Cavs or Guardians, and the Browns are garbage, so they need something,” he added.
Smith made a similar dig on Tuesday’s episode of Common Man & T-Bone, with Lima returning fire in kind on Wednesday’s episode of The Ken Carman Show with Anthony Lima.
“Anybody who’s lived in Columbus knows that it’s a bunch of support with Ohio State football. They’re a powerhouse down there, that’s their professional sport, more so than even the Blue Jackets,” Lima said while attempting to explain the feud to co-host Ken Carman. “So yeah, they say a lot of nice things about Ohio State.
“And so when they hear somebody else who happens to be in the state, who happens to be an alumnus of Ohio State, who may have pointed out three years ahead of time that Ryan Day’s probably not the guy or might have pointed out three years ahead of time that Chris Holtmann’s not the guy — it took them a lot longer, because they’re homers. That’s what homers do. I don’t think that’s that controversial.”
Lima, however, didn’t stop there.
“I get it. If I lived in Columbus and I was at the Craig Krenzel golf outing and it was every single year and one of the biggest benefactors to Ohio State, they had owned the media landscape for many years, they have sold off those properties,” he said in an apparent reference to 97.1 The Fan’s previous owner, the Wolfe family. “But I get it, I’d probably be in the same boat. But I think because I’m outside of Columbus, I think I can have a more unbiased view and that probably makes me look like some anti-Ohio State guy.
“Guess what, Kirk Herbstreit’s probably in the same category. He moved and got outside of the bubble. Once you’re outside of the bubble, you’re going to have a different opinion than those inside the bubble. And being in the bubble has made those guys a lot of money down there. So it doesn’t shock me that they say a lot of nice things 24/7 about Ohio State. Their fans probably want that. It probably helps their ratings. It probably helps their advertising partners. You don’t want to go on the air and just crush Ohio State every day. What good would that do? So I’m sympathetic to that.”
Carman, meanwhile, made it clear that this was Lima’s battle to fight and that he wanted nothing to do with it.
As is often the case in sports radio, both sides of the feud appear to be playing this thing up. But seeing as how Lima’s “homer” accusation clearly hit a nerve the first time he made it, one would imagine his rant on Wednesday won’t be the final word here.
About Ben Axelrod
Ben Axelrod is a veteran of the sports media landscape, having most recently worked for NBC's Cleveland affiliate, WKYC. Prior to his time in Cleveland, he covered Ohio State football and the Big Ten for outlets including Cox Media Group, Bleacher Report, Scout and Rivals.