Big League Broadcasting Exits STL

From Tom Taylor at Radio-Info.com:

Atlanta’s Big League Broadcasting completes its exit from St. Louis, where it once owned KRFT (1190), KFNS-FM, Troy, MO (100.7) and KFNS-AM, Wood River, IL (590). But recently, it sold KRFT-AM (now KQQZ, University City, MO) to the local Entertainment Trust for $600,000. It sold KFNS-FM to Westplex for $450,000. And last Fall Big League (Andrew Saltzman, Steak Shapiro) LMA’d KFNS-AM to the local “Grand Slam Sports”, headed up by Dave Greene and James Oelklaus. (October 7, 2009 TRI Newsletter). Now Grand Slam exercises its option to purchase the 1-kw "590 The Fan" for $1.4 million. If you’re toting up the cost of the Atlantans’ foray into St. Louis, it’s painful. In 2004, Big League Broadcasting paid Missouri Sports Radio $11.5 million for those two AMs and the rimshot FM. In 2009-2010, they’ve sold them for just shy of $2.5 million ($2,450,000), notes a poster on the Atlanta Board of Radio-Info.com. Meanwhile, Saltzman and Shapiro continue doing business in Atlanta on all-sports “Zone” WQXI (790), on the station they LMA from Lincoln Financial Media.

Word on the street is that Grand Slam will also be leasing 1380 AM from Simmons Media, with an option to purchase, thus combining both AM sports stations into one operation.

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