PATRICK LANDS FIRST RADIO AFFILIATE - ON L.A. STATION: Don Barrett of LARadio.com reports that Dan Patrick will have at least one affiliate when he radio show kicks off Oct. 1: KLAC-AM in Los Angeles, which also serves as the flagship station for the Lakers and UCLA.

Current KLAC-AM morning host Fred Roggin broke the news this morning: “This is going to be our final show together on KLAC. Yesterday, [we received] the somewhat sobering, yet exciting news. As many of you know, Dan Patrick, who worked for ESPN for many years, left that network and became a free agent and decided to go with syndicated radio.

“As the story goes, as the crow flies, as the wind blows, Clear Channel, which owns this station, signed Dan Patrick. Dan Patrick needed a Los Angeles home. Given the fact that from the very beginning of our go-round here, it had been trumpeted that it was only going to last a year.”

Roggin co-hosted the show with T.J. Simers of the L.A. Times, who weighed in with, “I made it very clear to management that this was killing me. I’m an old man. This was a tall order we took on. It was bigger than I thought. As recently as a couple of weeks ago I told them I couldn’t do it every day. So I think it was pretty much understood that we were not going to continue in the same format.

“Everything they said they would do, they’ve lived up to. I’ve got no problem because I was gone in December. And for Don Martin [KLAC gm/pd] to be right once again that local sports radio can’t make it in the morning. That was the thing you just couldn’t argue with.”

Correction: Morning sports radio in L.A. can succeed, just not with Simers at the helm (fueled by 11 minutes sleep). We’ll be shocked if the dreadful Patrick (at least as a radio host) lasts as long as the Roggin-Simers pairing did.

MATT LEINART SHOOTS MOVIE ROLE AT PLAYBOY MANSION: ESPN THE MAGAZINE has the very latest on Matt Leinart’s unparalleled commmitment to preparing for Arizona Cardinals games.

Just kidding, ETM reports Leinart recently week shot a cameo at the Playboy Mansion for producer Adam Sandler’s feature film “House Bunny”.

The movie, about a Playboy employee who becomes a sorority housemother after Hugh Hefner “boots her for being too old“, will also feature Shaq, Dan Patrick and Sean Salisbury (yes!). How Berman got passed over for duty in the Grotto we’ll never know.

One question: If Sandler is happily married, why the hell is he further postponing the inevitable Happy Gilmore sequel (Bob Barker’s ticker is on the clock) for 90 cinematic minutes of Playboy-based pap?

SALISBURY 08 HAS WILD MOOD SWING-MODE GAME PLAY! While all of you waste your time on something called MADDEN 08, we can hardly wait to sidle up to the sidewalk bin outside our local Odd Lots (Pacoima?) to get our mitts on SALISBURY 08.

JOE SPORTS FAN kept us going before the big release today, with all their the sneaks and leaks about the game showcasing the Sergeant At Arms of the Internet appreciation society.

Why take SALISBURY 08 over its better known counterpart? Simple, does Madden have “wild mood swing” game play, or the ability to put players in one-hour-of-sleep deprivation mode? Not to mention the ever popular coach ass-kiss feature that can help your favorite player get the nod off the bench?

So kudos to the discriminating football fans among us. We think we know which game opens up a Brave New World of football reality into our darkened, empty, Funions bags-strewn basement compound.

ESPN EMBRACES DETRACTOR BUT BRISTOL STILL BURNING: How much have things changed at ESPN? Will Leitch of DEADSPIN guested on ESPN Radio last Friday, with Scott Van Pelt hosting the interview (audio link). This is the same network which circulated a memo last year banning Leitch from appearing on any ESPN outlet.

DEADSPIN of course is renowned for giving ESPN a well-deserved wedgie on occasion, and like SbB, isn’t short on reportage and well-placed opinions about the sports media monolith.

Citing criticism from D-Spin, Van Pelt asked Leitch how ESPN could be “fixed” and “stop offending those who are blogging“. In other words, SVP grooved a BP fastball right down the cock to the sports blogger. Leitch’s response:

1) “Fire Dan Patrick”
2) “Have Bob Ley wear more clothes”
3) “Have the ESPYs four times a year”
4) “Be a little meaner to the women that work there, I think they’re getting a little too comfortable”
5) “Bring back ‘Quite Frankly’”

In the wake of Leitch’s 700-foot gopher ball off Van Pelt, we really want to help ESPN “stop offending those who are blogging” (rather patronizing phrasing, Scott?). So here’s some obvious observos:

1) ESPN was hopelessly skunked on the Pacman Jones-Vegas strip club fiasco by sports blogs and print media outlets - so it just ignored the story until it HAD to cover it. Because the network has no competition from other sports networks (where are you, Rupert and Mr. Malone?), it now thinks it decides what is newsworthy and what isn’t.

2) ESPN allows the play-by-play contracts it holds with sports leagues to color editorial decisions (see canceling “Playmakers”, decreasing NHL coverage, more Arena League coverage).

3) ESPN fires on-air personalities and gives the listeners/viewers absolutely no reason for the departure. Bristol execs want us to care about the personalities they push in front of us, so why do they think they can blow out Harold Reynolds and Dan Patrick and give us nothing (Patrick’s explanation was far from the truth - he wanted too much $ and was shown the door). We’re not talking about intimate details, but give us SOMETHING.

One of the reasons for the rise of a sports blog like Deadspin is Leitch’s transparent approach with his visitors (he recently roundly criticized D-Spin’s site redesign). ESPN could certainly learn something from his methods.

4) Since sports media competition has receded, ESPN has repeatedly made disastrous programming decisions. The entire EOE division is a major boondoggle (somewhere Mark Shapiro is giggling). And shows like “ESPN Hollywood”, “Quite Frankly” and features like “Who’s Now” and the fake Steve Phillips press conferences are prime examples of what happens in a monopoly. When you have no competition, you have no accountability, and creative quality inevitability suffers.

5) ESPN.com is losing users in droves because of a laughably busy design and clunky navigation, not to mention eminently annoying audio and video that automatically begins blaring when you hit the home page.

Oh yeah, and how about charging users a fee for “Insider” content featuring these journalistic heavyweights:

Getting back to the Leitch interview, Van Pelt lastly asked him if reporting on the personal lives of ESPN personalities was appropriate, specifically citing A.J. Daulerio’s legendary dispatches from Miami nightclubs during Super Bowl week that detailed the sordid activities of assorted ESPN personalties (Van Pelt’s implication was that D-Spin should leave well enough alone).

Leitch response: “One of the things that’s exciting about it is humanizes people (ESPNers) to average fans. That they’re being themselves.”

True enough, but we don’t think we would’ve been so kind (we know, you’re shocked).

ESPN has spent the past 20 years overpromoting its personalities as celebrities - marketing them in many ways the same as the athletes they cover. SportsCenter and network specialty show anchors earn gigantic salaries and enjoy the accompanying trappings of fame and fortune (something Van Pelt himself references in the interview).

Endorsements, books and thousands of ESPN commercials later (which are mostly clever, btw), Van Pelt now tells us that we shouldn’t cover ESPN personalities like other media celebrities? Keith Olbermann, Bill O’Reilly, Larry King and Rush Limbaugh are savaged by the political press and tabloids. King can be hounded on occasion in L.A. by the daily and weekly tabs. Likewise O’Reilly and Olbermann in New York.

Memo to SVP: When you’re famous, people care what drink you ordered at a South Beach nightclub. When you’re famous, people care about your personal hygiene in public places. When you’re famous, people care about your propensity for drunk-dialing.

If SVP, Stuart Scott, Chris Berman, Sean Salisbury and Shrutebag don’t want people to care about them (and the coverage that goes along with it), they should take a job covering high school sports in Terre Haute.

In the end, Van Pelt failed to absorb what Leitch was intimating throughout the interview - that ESPN has become an opaque corporate entity that treats its customers as mindless dolts. And we all know that as long as ESPN is part of Disney’s giant Conglomo empire, that will never change. Never.

CLARIFICATION: Because of a screw-up on my part, the author of this post was originally listed as Jason. I wrote the post. - Brooks

ESPN INSULTS LISTENERS (AGAIN) WITH PATRICK DEBACLE: Anyone with detectable electrical activity inside their cranium knew that allowing Dan Patrick on the radio for four more weeks after his announced departure wasn’t going to end well.

The same day (yesterday) the CHICAGO TRIBUNE reported that Patrick had signed a deal to syndicate a new radio show out of something called the Content Factory, ESPN ripped him off the air, plugged in Scott Van Pelt as a stopgap and stripped the show of Patrick-based production elements.

Same thing today. Patrick is obviously done, but our favorite sports media monolith once again insults its listeners by refusing to level with them on what happened. That, our friends, is what happens when you have no competition - you become arrogant. And that arrogance is what continues to alienate ESPN’s audience and is signaling the network’s decline.

Brisol-buttressed suits can chuckle all they want at that notion, but the barbarians are a lot closer to the gate than they know.

UPDATE: Patrick will apparently return to the show. So why the elimination of all mentions of him by fill-in hosts - and stripping the show of Patrick-based production elements? Stupid.

CUBS SAMARDZIJA’S BLOG DOWNED DURING MINORS FLOP: The CHICAGO TRIBUNE’s Steve Rosenbloom has this gem on ex-Notre Dame receiver Jeff Samardzija, who turned down a sure shot in the NFL to grab baseball bonus money (and accompanying minor league anonymity in the Cubs farm system):

Rosenbloom, who recently escaped the fate of further working with ESPN mouth-breather Sean Salisbury on Chicago AM radio, has made the transition to web as well as any dinosaur media member we can think of.

Then again, since we don’t read newspapers (except when accidently discovering one underneath bowling alley cigarette machines while searching for dropped change), don’t take that as an overly-informed opinion.

GOOD CHICAGOANS - SAY GOODBYE TO SEAN SALISBURY: ESPN recently moved Sean Salisbury to the Worldwide Leader’s Chicago radio station before he drove everyone nuts in Bristol to host morning drive with Steve Rosenbloom.

And now word comes from the CHICAGO TRIBUNE that after only a year, the good folks at WMVP-AM have had enough of Salisbury’s mindless, mean-spirited blather, dumping him and Rosenbloom in favor of Tom Waddle and Steve Silverman (who move from evenings on the station).

While Rosenbloom has been offered another spot by the station on an actual show, ESPN’s WMVP wouldn’t make a similar commit to Salisbury, as the Tribune reports he only “will still be heard on various shows on the ESPN Radio affiliate and play a role in the Bears’ pregame coverage.”

In other words, WMVP doesn’t want to eat his contract and hopes he stumbles into a fireable offense.

SHAWN MARION KNOWS HOW TO HAVE FUN, LOTS OF IT: As we here on the west coast get geared up for what is sure to be a hot, sexy weekend of All-Star activities in Las Vegas, Shawn Marion has already gotten the party started:

Nothing like being dealt a full house your first night in Vegas!

With that unfortunate photo in mind, perhaps it’s not such a bad idea to have ESPN’s Sean Salisbury brief NBA players about rapacious evildoers who await them this weekend.

NEW ESPN PHONE - NO SALISBURY ACCESSORY: Apparently inspired by George W. Bush’s recommittment to the war in the Iraq, the ASSOCIATED PRESS reports that ESPN is relaunching its previously-failed mobile phone service.

The service will relaunch in March and be available on Verizon’s “V Cast” phones. Content will include an ESPN channel with much of the same programming as what’s aired on the broadcast network.

Surprisingly, there’s no word of a role for ESPN’s Sean Salisbury in the relaunch of service, despite his obvious enthusiasm for introducing the wonderment of camera phone technology to co-workers.

SUPER BOWL O’ WEEKEND WEIGH-INS: Last night I appeared on KABC-AM in Los Angeles on the “Ask Mr. KABC” show. The show is the highest rated evening radio show in Los Angeles, and in the midnight hour, has more listeners than any other outlet in the market.

I know, you’re saying ‘midnight? … whatever‘.

This ain’t Reno. In most cities smaller than L.A., evening radio programming consists of a 20-year-old reairing of a King Biscuit Flour Hour featuring Stevie Nicks, an encore presentation(!) of Rusty Humphries, or your only live alternative: The Truckin’ Bozo!

There’s plenty of live, non-syndicated programming competing for ears at that time in Los Angeles. Not to mention competition from the foreign language stations. So salutations to the “Beloved Southern California Radio Icon” on being #1.

We had an interesting chat about the Super Bowl (in other words, most of it had nothing to do with the game). One of the topics was why Super Bowl ticket prices are plummeting, as was noted here on Friday.

Dan Wetzel of Yahoo Sports has a viable explanation: Since Miami is such a hot party spot, most of Miami’s hotel rooms and rental cars were sold out well before the teams were determined, so fans from Chicago and Indy are S.O.L. - and the people who are actually there have no intention of attending the game.

Thus, demand for tickets is low, and the value of the seats is following suit.

Monday I’ll be down the hall from KABC, at KSPN-AM, pinch-hitting for John Ireland as I co-host “The Big Show” with Steve Mason from 3-6pm PT.

Last Friday, new SbB contributor Tom Hoffarth had a big piece on Matt “Money” Smith of KLAC-AM in the LOS ANGELES DAILY NEWS. Matt now co-hosts an afternoon talkshow on the sports station with Petros Papadakis and also is the primary host of the pre- and postgame shows for Lakers broadcasts.

He was formerly the morning sports guy (and music director) at the legendary KROQ-FM here in L.A. Jimmy Kimmel filled the same sports slot (and discovered Adam Carolla at that time) before he departed for Comedy Central to host Win Ben Stein’s Money and The Man Show.

As has been voiced in this space before, Matt is the best listen in town. His afternoon show sets the standard for sports talk. Nice to see him recognized in a business which usually eschews creativity, originality, and people under 40% bodyfat. You can get the stream to his show here (weekdays, 3-6pm Pacific time).

No, that doesn’t come back with a Money back guarantee.

I’ve been debating as to where to watch the Super Bowl in SoCal. Unfortunately, I will have to be semi-sober throughout the proceedings, so I’m seriously considering watching the monumental matchup at “Taste Chicago” in Burbank. The joint is owned by legendary Chicago actor Joe Mantegna (think “Da Bears” SNL skit, Fat Tony from the Simpsons and the Rat Pack movie, among a million other films).

It’s normally a tiny HITW shoehorned at Hollywood Way and Verdugo, but Joe is planning to pitch a tent in the parking lot (with the accompanying big screens) well in advance of the on-field proceedings. There’ll likely be some Chicago-centric celeb sightings, so it might be worthy place to park for the game.

Speaking of parking for the game, Will Leitch, editor of Deadspin.com and charter member of the Sean Salisbury fan club, will be live blogging on CBS Sportsline during the Super Bowl. So if you’re somehow handcuffed to a computer during the game, you’re welcome for the worthy browser window suggestion.