Can Tirico's show find local in national?

I've written it before, and I'll write it again: All sports, like all politics, is local.

So it seemed a recipe for disaster earlier this week when Mike Tirico said on a conference call about his new syndicated ESPN Radio program that "this show will be very national."

Yet when Tirico went on to explain the remark, he made it clear he means national in a local way, if that makes any sense. That is, he intends to try to get away from the New York-Boston-Los Angeles axis that dominates so much of sports and the sports media. On the road much of the year doing play-by-play for ESPN's "Monday Night Football" and ABC's NBA coverage, he'll be doing the show from affiliate stations on a regular basis -- and no doubt as often as possible from WMVP 1000-AM in Chicago, which in many ways remains ESPN Radio's flagship and where he's airing weekdays from noon to 2 p.m.

"I'm a big fairness guy," Tirico said. "We're going to have voices from around the country."

Tirico didn't go into details about who those voices will be, but he is planning a roster of regular contributors from across the nation. "We're going to have a lot of fun, fun at our own expense, fun with what's going on in sports," he said. "It's stuff I would listen to if I were not involved."

Tirico, who lives in Ann Arbor, Mich., pointed to his season tickets for Michigan football and basketball, as well as the Detroit Tigers and Lions, and said, "I'm still a fan." Yet that doesn't explain why a guy with a full schedule to begin with would take on a two-hour weekday radio show, replacing Dan Patrick to boot.

"The fuel for it is the passion for radio," Tirico said. He has been an ESPN fixture since joining the sports network in 1991, and he was one of the original voices on ESPN Radio when it launched 15 years ago. The timing also just seemed right.

"Technology makes it possible," Tirico said, noting he'll often do the show from home. "I have kids in school now who are not home in the early part of the afternoon. So I'm not taking any time from them."

So now the question is simply whether Tirico can master the delicate balancing act of being national and local at the same time.

He sounded polished and professional, as one would expect, in his formal debut Thursday, and made the same promises. "The show is going to be around America," he said. "This truly will be a national show." Yet what was the first topic he zoomed in on but Red Sox-Yankees? Only after did he make reference to the Cubs and Brewers. That's no way to draw listeners away from the intensely local Mike Murphy on WSCR 670-AM.

"I'd like to do a show that is representative of what's going on in sports," Tirico said on the call. He expects it to be inquisitive and enlightening -- to himself as well as the listeners. "I don't want to do two hours of (crud) that I know," he added.

We'll see -- or, rather, hear -- if he can deliver on that, or whether he settles into more of a routine, as one might expect given his overactive schedule. "I'm very lucky," he said self-deprecatingly at one point. "I've fooled a lot of people."

He won't fool listeners or himself if the workload proves to be too much.

In the air

Remotely interesting: Comcast SportsNet Chicago was the top station in town Monday night, when the Cubs' win over the Reds produced a 6.8 average local Nielsen. The Cubs did even better while losing Tuesday, with a 7.7 rating, meaning more than 250,000 households tuned in. The Cubs are averaging a 4.2 on CSNC this season, up from 2.9 last year. The Blackhawks make their preseason TV debut on CSNC at 11 a.m. Tuesday when they visit Florida.

The Dish Network has added the Big Ten Network to its satellite lineup. … WPWR Channel 50 airs the Fire game against D.C. United at 2 p.m. Sunday. … WWME Channel 23 airs the football game between Mount Carmel and Brother Rice at 7:30 p.m. today, with Les Grobstein and Kenny McReynolds on the call. … The locally produced lampoon series "Sports Action Team" runs at 11:45 p.m. Sunday on WMAQ Channel 5. New episodes premiere at 7 p.m. Fridays on HDNet.

End of the dial: WSCR held on to a 1.8 percent share of the overall audience 12 and older in monthly Arbitrends released this week, while WMVP 1000-AM remained at a 1.2 share.

WLS Channel 7 sports anchor Mark Giangreco is doing a weekly hourlong segment with Tom Waddle and Marc Silverman at 11 a.m. Tuesdays on WMVP. They're also doing a weekly segment with Mike Ditka at his Chicago restaurant at 11 a.m. Thursdays, and Charles "Peanut" Tillman is a regular guest at 10:20 a.m. Tuesdays.

-- Ted Cox