Who won the 2025 ‘Dollars and sense' Chicago sports media survey?

New York Times

16-07-2025

'Dollars and sense' is a column about Chicago sports media and business.
It had been three years since we did a Chicago sports media survey and the voters were ready. More than double the number of respondents turned up at the polls than in 2022 (5,191 in total, though most questions received around 4,500 votes).
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I asked a lot of questions so let's go straight to the results. (You can click here for the full list.)
No surprise here. 670 The Score won again, beating ESPN 1000, 68.4 percent to 31.6 (4,371 votes). That's down a little from 2022, when 670 The Score won 71.3-28.7.
I got some complaints about too many Score questions, but the station makes a lot of changes, so I'm interested in what the audience thinks.
'Yes, regularly' is the winner here with 41.3 percent. After that comes 'Yes, sometimes' (34.7), 'No, but I used to' at 20.9 percent, and 'No, I hate everything about it' at 3.1 percent. So, 76 percent of respondents listen to sports radio, which makes all these questions newsworthy, I suppose.
The winner is ESPN 1000's mainstay 'Waddle & Silvy' at 28.1 percent. Marc Silverman is probably renting a villa in Tuscany right now, so he won't see this, but he and Tom Waddle have been doing this show together since 2007 and it remains fun and interesting.
Second place is the new pairing of longtime Score hosts Laurence Holmes and Matt Spiegel at 26.6 percent, followed by the Score's long-running morning show of Mike Mulligan and David Haugh (who replaced Brian Hanley in 2018) at 21.7 percent.
Last time I did this in 2022, the new show 'Bernstein & Holmes' beat out 'Waddle & Silvy.'
No surprise here, it's two in a row for Laurence Holmes, who also won this vote in 2022. Holmes had 20.8 percent of the vote, beating out ESPN's 1000 morning show host David Kaplan (16 percent), who also has a separate YouTube channel for his REKAP Network. Kaplan, of course, has built an audience over the decades hosting on WGN radio and NBC Sports Chicago.
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Third place goes to Holmes' partner Matt Spiegel (13 percent), followed by Waddle (12) and Mulligan (8.4).
Did I need to do two Bernstein questions? Probably not. But I was curious what people thought now that the smoke has cleared from his firing, which stemmed from a Twitter meltdown about fishing ethics.
You might not like him, but he was on the air for 30 consecutive years for a reason. When I first did this survey in 2019, Bernstein won best host, and in 2022, he finished second by 0.7 percent to his then-partner Holmes. But this time around, 56.9 percent said they don't miss him on the air, while 31.4 percent said they did and 11.6 percent said they did 'when something big happens.'
As for a future podcast, one possible avenue for him, 64.8 percent said they wouldn't listen, 32 percent said they would and 3.1 percent said they'd 'hate-listen.'
I think Bernstein and The Score benefited each other, and I'm not sure how powerful his voice would be elsewhere. The station certainly misses his opinions and his encyclopedic knowledge of Chicago sports.
I almost added a second question asking if anyone was watching his FS1 show 'Breakfast Ball.' And boy, would that be newsy right now.
NEWS: Joy Taylor out at Fox Sports as FS1 cancels three shows, including her's, Craig Carton's & Emmanuel Acho's, The Athletic has learned.https://t.co/vhKvPJqPWj
— Andrew Marchand (@AndrewMarchand) July 14, 2025
On Monday, The Athletic's Andrew Marchand reported that 'Breakfast Ball' was one of three FS1 shows that were canceled before football season starts. Parkins left Chicago last summer to move to New York City for a starring role on the sports talk show. The show didn't last a year, but from what I'm hearing, Parkins should get on another show there as he has a multi-year deal with Fox Sports.
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This was a close vote, as 48.5 percent voted that they didn't miss Parkins at The Score, while 45.8 percent said they did and another 5.7 said they did 'when something big happens.'
This is where I say, 'Who ya crapping?' to some voters. Because 53.8 percent say it's worse and 56.5 percent say they're less likely to listen. How many of you said you don't miss Bernstein or Parkins, but The Score is worse without them? I think famed fictional TV executive Rogers Meyers Jr. said it best:
More than a third of you think The Score is the same as it was a year ago (35.3 percent) and that your listening hasn't changed (34.3). Only 10.9 percent said it's better than it was a year ago, and 9.1 percent said you're more likely to listen.
'Spiegel & Holmes' eked out a win over 'Mully & Haugh,' 43.9 percent to 43 percent, a difference of just 38 votes. 'Rahimi & Harris' put up a respectable 13.1 percent as the new show in town.
'Waddle & Silvy' was the easy winner here at 63.8 percent, followed by 'Kap & J. Hood' at 24.3 percent and 'Carmen & Jurko' at 11.9.
A few hours before writing this section, I tuned into one show while in the car and promptly heard a caller ask two ESPN 1000 hosts to estimate how many wins Matt Eberflus cost the Bears last season. Very pressing news in mid-July.
But 42.1 percent of you say the stations don't talk too much Bears, while 37.3 percent say they do, and 20.6 percent responded: 'Bearsssss.'
The Cubs' radio broadcast, led by the Hall of Famer Pat Hughes, deservedly won the vote this year with 37.9 percent, followed by the Bears radio team (19.4) and the Bulls' TV crew (14.5).
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When I did this survey in 2022, the easy winner was the White Sox TV team of Jason Benetti and Steve Stone at 39.8 percent. A lot has changed since then. The current Sox TV team of John Schriffen and Stone came in next-to-last of TV and radio shows for the 'big five' teams at 1.5 percent. I had a nice conversation with Schriffen this season and he was aware of his struggles last season. In the games I've watched, he's been much better. But I'm not sure how well he and Stone are meshing.
It turns out you do, as 38.9 percent of the respondents said they listen regularly and 34.7 percent said they do sometimes. Another 6.8 percent said they only listen to national sports podcasts and 19.7 percent aren't listening at all to podcasts.
Of course, the overwhelming favorite is 'Hoge & Jahns' with 47.3 percent. The Adams Hoge and Jahns will now be doing the show under the CHGO umbrella after Jahns left Ye Olde Athletic. Second goes to Audacy's 'Take The North' podcast hosted by Dan Wiederer and Mark Grote (15.9), and third is CHGO's Bears podcast (10.7).
I'll be honest, I don't listen to a lot of sports podcasts in general, and I definitely don't listen to ones about Chicago sports. I get enough Chicago sports chit-chat in my job. So I threw in a bunch that I knew and offered a write-in category for the rest.
One plucky podcast took the initiative to get its name out there.
The Athletic is doing a Chicago sports media survey. We are not on the favorite non-Bears podcast list so you will need to check *Other* and then type in 'Locked On Cubs.'
More details on our episode tonight. Thank you for voting! Survey link: https://t.co/ucHya82e4Y pic.twitter.com/bOc1SGxUoV
— Matt Cozzi (@matt_cozzi) July 10, 2025
And it worked. With a bunch of write-in variations, 'Locked On Cubs,' hosted by Matt Cozzi and Sam Olbur (Locked On is a chain of podcasts with local hosts), won with 23.2 percent of the vote. Second was 'North Side Territory,' which is the Cubs podcast from The Athletic's duo of Patrick Mooney and Sahadev Sharma (11.5 percent). After that came the CHGO brand of podcasts (10.6).
I feel for my friends in the TV side because the business ain't what it used to be. I will say this: Every time I'm on a show, I or my family get feedback from friends. People still watch in Chicago. But 56 percent of our respondents say they don't watch a nightly sportscast, while only 25.6 percent say they sometimes do. We still have 9.4 percent who do regularly and 9.1 percent who say their parents or grandparents watch.
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With that in mind…
I think the CHSN Factor/YouTube TV is at play here because 32.1 percent said they don't watch any of them. That option wasn't included in 2022. But for those who do watch, the White Sox postgame show of Chuck Garfien and Ozzie Guillen won with 23.2 percent, beating the Marquee Sports Network show hosted by Cole Wright (18.1 percent).
It's clear the audience hasn't fully adapted to the new RSN reality in Chicago. For the first question, 39.4 percent said they don't get the channels, while 30.4 percent said they get both. (YouTube TV customers have to buy a la carte subscriptions to Marquee and/or CHSN.)
A whopping 84.9 percent said they are Comcast customers (the honor system is at play here) who didn't upgrade their package for CHSN, with just 5.3 percent saying they'll do it for the Bulls/Blackhawks season. That's the struggle for an RSN made up of three losing teams.
I'm curious about this one because there's such a push to YouTube (or Twitch), but the numbers never seem that impressive to me. More than half of the respondents (52.7 percent) said they never watch, but I suppose the 47.3 percent who do watch regularly or occasionally give credence to the strategy.
Your answers are pretty evenly split between cable subscription + streaming apps (34.7 percent), YouTube TV + streaming apps (32.9 percent) and only streaming (28.9 percent). In the 2022 survey, 48 percent said they still had a cable subscription.
Hey, good news for us as 84.2 percent said they are subscribers. That's up from 81.8 percent in 2022.
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Now onto the fill-in questions…
In 2022, the winner was The Athletic's James Fegan, who has since moved on to the Sox Machine collective. This time around, it's The Athletic's OG baseball writer, Sahadev Sharma, who had 10.2 percent of the vote, just beating out Chicago Tribune football writer Brad Biggs (9.2 percent) and Jahns (8.8 percent). Less than 40 votes made the difference between first and third here. After that come The Athletic Bears writer Kevin Fishbain (8.2 percent) and, because I administered the survey, me (7.8 percent).
As I counted and fact-checked the results, I assumed Dan 'Big Cat' Katz would win with his 1.7 million followers, but I doubted the passion of the Locked On Cubs superfans. Sam Olbur, the co-host of the podcast, might only have 6,932 followers, but he easily won this category with 9.2 percent of the vote, more than double Katz's 4.4 percent. I'm guessing Katz makes slightly more money podcasting than Olbur, so this is a win for the little guy.
I finished in third at 3.8 percent. Again, I did the survey, so I suppose this is a social payment.
(Photo screenshot of Tom Waddle and Marc Silverman: Courtesy of ESPN 1000)