By TSM
Multiple sources are telling me this evening that a true legend has left the friendly confines of Ted Roger’s place. Yes, the brains behind the Fan 590, the man who was there for a very long time, who brought in and mentored many of the personalities you’ve all come to love and loathe, Nelson Millman is no longer with Rogers.
I am not sure exactly on the details of the exit, but Millman was there for a VERY long time. You’ll remember that he moved from the radio side over to the tv side not so long ago, and as a result we’ve not heard so much about him of late.
Personally, I think this is a loss for the folks at Rogers. I am not sure there is a single person who understands sports programming better from a business perspective than he does. More than that, Nelson is a great guy. I think, and don’t know this for sure, but I would guess that there are very few folks in the business in Toronto who have a bad word to say about him.
I can tell you that when I first started this site, he was one of the first MSMers I got to speak to. He was always professional to deal with, returned every call and while he didn’t answer a whole lot of questions he certainly made me laugh a lot.
I think Nelson was loyal to his team of hosts perhaps to a fault. I could predict when I would hear from him. If I wrote something unkind about one of his “guys” past or present I was sure to get an email or a call. I have to believe that those days back at the Fan when he had to let people go were the toughest for him professionally as I get the feeling that he hired people and gave them every opportunity to succeed; He treated them as family.
Now, don’t take this as a knock on the current radio administration as it is not that. Every fish has it’s day as it is said. A comparison isn’t fair and this isn’t about Don Kollins.
So, if the stories are true and Nelson is no longer with Rogers, here’s hoping he lands somewhere as quickly as he wants, assuming he does. If I were at TSN or the Score or some other network I would bring him in at least as an adviser. Hey, that’s just me and no one asks me.
The times they are a changing, and I guess we’ll all see if that’s good or bad.
Speaking of Nelson, I’m guessing I am wearing some egg for tipping my hat to Nelson’s old buddy McCown on the whole Crosby story. Let’s not go there shall we 🙂
I will say this, for whatever reason I did always love and look forward to those in studio sessions Nelson did with Mccown. They were great fun to listen to.
Happy Wednesday.
TSM
Update: I’m told Scott Woodgate communicated this to rogers staff yesterday and that Nelson has left to take an executive role with the Olympic Consortium. Good stuff.