It was an inspired gimmick, realizing how many times talking heads say, write and tweet dumb things that get dumber over time. And the interaction side of it made what was a good idea into, I think, a state-wide phenomenon and a cash cow for the sports-talk radio station. It got so big that there was an annual Selection Show, where the station issued tickets to members of the "Commonwealth." In recent years companies actually sponsored the four "regions" of the PST. It hadn't gotten big enough for a tournament-ending party similar to its Selection Show, but revealing the winner after three weeks of voting (instead of what the show usually did, which is just naming the winner during the course of a regular show) deserved it.
I was looking forward to this year's edition, the tenth (PSTVV, instead of PSTX). Wow, ten years of a radio stunt and it still doesn't seem to get old! But I noticed some weird changes. First, I didn't hear the promotional push I usually hear about PST in January. Then the tournament didn't start on time. It traditionally began so that it would end just before the weekend of Selection Sunday -- perfect timing in my opinion -- but that didn't happen.
Finally, one day I was just rummaging around the KFAN website not too long ago ... and I saw the bracket. I was totally scared that the show wasn't going to even do a PST, but it was there, but something was off. First of all there was no on-air fanfare, or even an announcement that the bracket would be revealed at this time on this vehicle. More worrisome to me, the regions of the bracket aren't sponsored; the show has gone back to calling them "East," "Midwest," "South" and "West," like the NCAA men's basketball tournament.
This is very confusing to me. The Preposterous Statement Tournament was extremely popular. I have no doubt it made money for the station, and in radio, making money is the only thing you worry about. It was big and it was only going upward. So why this shrinkage, no promotion, no sponsors, no nothing?
I can only come up with two theories. One, it wasn't making as much money as I thought it was, at least no compared to the expense. But what kind of expenses can you incur when setting up the bracket? It's just online stuff. I guess you need people to construct the bracket and make sure the online polling script works, and you'll need people (probably interns) to sift through the year's preposterous statements, but that's it. The other theory scares me: The Common Man is tired of doing PST and is winding it down. If that's the case, that's fucking, well, preposterous. This was fun, interest in this is (or was) high, and if it made money, you ride that son-of-a-bitch as long as you can. You really shouldn't just shut it down because ... what, you got bored with it? It takes too much time?
What also strikes me as odd is that, while they go through that day's results and upcoming matchups (they do a chunk of matchups every day), Dan Cole continually says that this year's preposterous statements are the best ever. They might be; there are some fucking doozies in it. But if so, why are you sending the message that PST is shrinking, not growing? Why not advertise the hell out of it?? And what the hell happened to getting sponsors to pony up money for it???
So if they're going down this road, I'm afraid I would not be surprised at all if they announced at the end of this PST that this will be the last PST. If so, that would be a goddamn shame. No good idea should ever be thrown away, especially if people are still willing to listen and participate and if companies are still willing to pay. I honestly don't know what's going on with this, and so I fear for the future of PST.
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