Clear Channel’s “Fox Sports 620” KPOJ Portland is going all-in behind the NBA’s Portland Trail Blazers.
With the Blazers about to begin the playoffs later this week, their flagship station is rebranding as “Rip City Radio“. The Rip City moniker has become associated with Portland since the Trail Blazers first season when announcer Bill Schonely coined the term.
This is the first season KPOJ served as flagship station for the Blazers broadcasts as they moved from sister News/Talk 1190 KEX. All of the existing local programming on the station has a Blazers connection as team play-by-play man Brian Wheeler hosts a daily show from 2 to 4pm and the team produces “Trail Blazers Courtside” every Monday from 6-7pm. Comcast Sportsnet reports that additional local programming will be added.
In addition to airing Blazers games, KPOJ carries Oregon State and Hillsboro Hops baseball (We earlier noted that KPOJ carried Seattle Seahawks games as well, but they air or KXTG and 101.1 KXL-FM). KPOJ is currently third of four Sports stations in the Portland market with a 0.7 share trailing Entercom’s “1080 The Fan” KFXX and Alpha Broadcasting’s “750 The Game” KXTG.