The Final Word: Why The Weekend Warm-Up with Jeff and Matty on the Big Jab ended

The Maine Sports Network's relationship with Atlantic Coast Radio ended on July 6th, 2011. Not more than a couple days pass without us encountering someone who:

1. Wondered “where we went”?
2. Wondered “why we left”?
3. Asked" what happened”?

This piece is about why we left and is meant to be the “be-all, end-all” in terms of rumor-mongering and urban legend (Matty was asked this weekend by someone if the July 4th show was the end because we were talking about Rumford and Drive-Ins that weekend. Great story, but no). 

 In 2008 we started broadcasting on the internet. We did it solely on the internet for the first 6 weeks or so, before we moved to a small community station. We'd broadcast on that 25 watt behemoth 8a-11a every Sunday morning. Both of us (Jeff and Matty) had been in-studio for on-air segments on the Jab previously (on separate occasions), and they allowed us to plug our stuff on the air and do work on their website's blog. As we kept doing shows, we kept bugging the Jab to let us fill-in for vacationers, and to give us a weekend slot. So we bugged. And bugged. And bugged. Finally, in April of 2009, we got the news: we'd be doing a Saturday morning show with Chris Sedenka for a few weeks, and getting the show ourselves afterwards. It happened, and we were solo after Labor Day. Slowly but surely, we were both getting (paid) fill-in gigs. Then “The Weekend Jab” left the airwaves after it's host, Kyle Violette, moved to Washington and co-host DJ Abisalih looked to branch out and took a job broadcasting for the now defunct Lewiston Maineiacs. As a result, JJ Jeffrey, who co-owns ACR and is a daily presence at the station, told us to take an extra hour on Saturdays, which we did happily. We booked guests, worked on our websites, and filled in where needed (including Matty filling in for Joe on the Morning Jab last year for 6 months). We put together the broadcast of the 2009 Maine State High School Football Championships while overcoming a massive computer system failure. We did football again in 2010, and then added basketball over the winter, all the while paying for the airtime to put these games on ACR. If we don't pay, those games are not on the station. Over the winter and in the spring, we were looking at getting more airtime and trying to figure out what station our HS Sports broadcasts were going to be housed, but in talks a member of our group had with ACR management, there wasn't going to be room for us to expand, and we were told that the station understood "if you look somewhere else”. That's what we did. Nassau jumped at the opportunity, and it was announced on July 7th that our talk shows and high school game broadcasts would be moving to 1470 and 870 WLAM. That's the story. We have ZERO bad feelings about ACR. We aren't going to bash them, and tell you not to listen, or whatever you might be waiting for, because if not for them we aren't ever in this position. We're extremely grateful to them for giving us our start. Will there be competitive banter between the two stations? Of course, it's radio. That's how it works. Now, with that out of the way, listen to us Saturday and Sunday morning on 870 and 1470 AM! 8am to Noon! September 2nd, Lee Goldberg 10 am to Noon and Jeff and Matty from 12:30 to 5! High School Football on Friday and Saturdays (check out the schedule)! If you haven't caught our last two weekends of shows, seen our feature in the Sun Journal, or watched our first show highlight video yet, check them all out below. You can listen 24/7 at MaineSportsRadio.com)

Video Highlights August 6th show August 7th show August 13th show August 14th show Sun Journal: Local Duo Making Sports Talk Splash