What a strange but peaceful time in Chicago sports media. No Jay Mariotti (as of today) and no Mike North (sort of). North, once the biggest name in Chicago sports radio is now the biggest name in restaurant webio shows? From hot dogs to radio star to steakhouse website?
North’s story includes, co-owning a hot dog stand, hosting a radio handicap show and being an original personality for Chicago’s first all sports station WSCR “The Score”. North teamed with former Chicago Bear Dan Jiggets to form the “Monsters of the midday” from 1992-1999. He reportedly angled to get his own show, which led to being the morning man at WSCR from 2004-2008? After ratings slid, WSCR offered North a financially reduced contract. He reportedly walked away from 700k a year.
North has claimed with some debate his contract with WSCR has three months left and prohibits him from being on radio or television. Broadcasters in Illinois haven’t been subject to non-compete clauses since Jan. 1, 2002. What’s North doing now? He has started a handicapping website. The site features picks by himself and both his former update man Fred Huebner and producer of his show at WSCR Jen Patterson.
North also recently approached Chicago restaurant icon Rich Melman with the idea of hosting a show on the restaurant company’s website. Melman gave North a four month deal to stream a show on Lettuce Entertain You’s Wildfire’s website WildfireRestaurant.com. Melman claims North has tripled the website’s traffic.
“When I walked away from the Score, I said: ‘Now what? I can’t do radio or TV,’ ” North said by phone. “I was thinking of fighting it, the right to work, but at the end of the day, the Score could always match whoever offered me money. By the time I went to court and it was settled, it would be January and I would be ready to go on. So I went to Rich Melman with this idea.”
“The Mike North Webio Show,” with Wildfire among its sponsors, will be streamed live at www.WildfireRestaurant.com Monday through Friday from 9 to 11 a.m. Downloads will be available each day, beginning at 1 p.m. on North’s own site, NorthtoNorth.com, as well as iTunes.com.
“I’ve always liked him. I’ve loved his passion,” Melman said in an interview. “I’m not going to tell you I’m any expert on Web shows or the Internet or anything like that. But I talked to a couple of our people and they said it was interesting. A number of people said this is the coming thing. So I said, ‘Let’s try it and tie it into one of our restaurants.’
Good to see Mike hasn’t lost his touch?
September 16th, 2008 at 2:19 am
Nice Site layout for your blog. I am looking forward to reading more from you.
Tom Humes
September 17th, 2008 at 12:22 am
Lol..Ok Mike, your a something else, when all else fails, lie.