The Score’s firing of Dan Bernstein last Friday ended a relationship that had lasted 30 years. It also rekindled relationships and sparked conversations among his former colleagues.
“I’m very emotional still about that radio station,” said Dan McNeil, a longtime host at The Score who was among its original members. “I probably reconnected with 10 or 12 guys who were either Score or ESPN [1000] alums or both. It was kind of like a combination Irish wake/shiva/reunion. People really wanted to talk and reflect on how everything has changed.”
“I have a lot of friends in the industry, and a lot of us like Dan and care about him,” said Tom Shaer, whose voice was the first heard on The Score. “We were talking among ourselves how this could not be anything but bad. The only question was how bad.”
Bernstein wasn’t a Score original, but he might as well have been. Though the station hired him in 1995, three years after it launched, Bernstein first appeared on The Score in 1993 on Tom Shaer’s morning show. Bernstein had won a Dick Vitale soundalike contest, and Shaer’s producer, Rick Gieser, would put him on every now and then to do impressions.
“He debuted on our show, and I’ve always been very proud of that,” Shaer said. “Dan met his wife, Beth, through my show. I’ve always considered Dan a younger brother. I think the world of him. I think he’s a brilliant talent, a good guy. He’s complicated, as we all are.”
Bernstein was the last link to The Score’s original era. The station fired him after he engaged in an ugly social-media exchange in which he threatened to dox the person and involve his kids. It came one year after he drew ire for his poor reaction to being called by his last name on the air. It also came 10 years after he posted a lewd remark about a female TV sportscaster.
Bernstein also had worked through a cantankerous history with callers and strained relationships in the office. But amid a heightened awareness of sensitivity, his protection collapsed. Neither his longevity nor his ratings could save him anymore.
“Danny had sort of been enabled before,” said Mike North, a Score original whose idea for a sports-radio station in Chicago turned into The Score. “When you have power and you’re bringing in ratings, you’re given more leeway. But I think it was accumulation. Plus, there’s stuff that happens with every host. Talk-show hosts are not completely stable people, we’re not.”
In February, Bernstein’s last full month on The Score, his show with Marshall Harris drew a 9.1 share among men 25-54, tops in the market by almost three points between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., according to Nielsen. Yet, Bernstein’s dismissal was celebrated widely on social media.
“This is the crux of the whole matter,” said Shaer, who now represents broadcasters. “If people don’t like you, you want it to be because they don’t like your opinions. But if they start to not like you because of some public transgression, then it becomes very complicated for the host and for management. And I think that’s what got them to this point.”
“What you saw on [X], except for the people he worked with, I didn’t see a lot of people around the country that are talk-show hosts crying about it,” said North, who now co-hosts “The Odds Couple” on ESPN 1000. “The shocking thing about Danny is he wasn’t the most sociable guy. He and I had some issues. He had an uneasy relationship with most of the originals. He came walking in and he was filled with bravado, and that’s fine. But it turned off a lot of people.”
Score original Terry Boers didn’t seem to be one of them. He co-hosted with Bernstein for 17 years until health problems forced him to retire in January 2017. Bernstein’s combative on-air persona developed on that show and followed him to his firing, though he had toned it down. Boers politely declined to be interviewed.
Bernstein joined a select group in The Score’s history. Among him and the station’s seven originals – add Brian Hanley, Dan Jiggetts and Mike Murphy – Boers was the only one who either wasn’t fired or didn’t leave in a contract dispute. Bernstein also joins McNeil, who was fired for an inappropriate social-media post in 2020.
“There’s an old expression in broadcasting,” Shaer said. “There are very few happy endings.”
“Danny didn’t get fired for what he said at The Score,” North said. “He got fired because of social media. I don’t know if I would’ve lasted more than two years if there was social media. He shouldn’t have answered that guy.”
“William Peterson called me from L.A. He wanted to talk about it,” McNeil said of the Evanston native who’s known best for his role on the TV series “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.” “He loved The Score. That’s how far-reaching this is. And Bill wasn’t upset that Bernstein was fired, per se. He’s upset that the old fraternity-house feeling that he was a part of is gone.”
While The Score figures out what to do with its midday show – Leila Rahimi appears to be getting the first crack at joining Harris, though she carries the baggage of a mysterious departure from NBC 5, where she was the lead sports anchor – Bernstein’s former colleagues reminisce about a bygone era in sports radio and a career that didn’t have to end.
“It’s a sad day in the family,” Shaer said, “but I think The Score is bigger than any one person. Look at all of the people who left. The Score is still there.”