Everyone's Brent Musburger

So let's listen in on a broadcast.

[Sounds of dead air, interrupted only by the sound of someone in the background talking on the phone, followed by hideous crackling noises.]

All right, we're still testing our audio here ... We'll try to make some assessment of whether [our on-site reporter] should speak straight into the mike or I should relay the information.

OK! So it's a work in progress.

"I don't think we're there yet," Epstein says of the artistic quality and production values of the broadcasts, but he says he's unconcerned. "Right now it's free for them to broadcast and they're not getting paid, so it's totally wide open, and that's how I want it to be at the beginning."

"Fabulous Dan" Marino does a talk show on FanCast three times a week. Marino was an on-air personality on a Bay Area sports radio station for several years, and his show sounds a bit more professional. He says there is some good stuff happening on the month-old site.

"There are certain guys who are on the air, and these guys do a really surprisingly good job considering that they've never done this before," Marino says. He cites broadcasters known as Commish Bo, Little Johnson, Mark Harmon, Jay Christopher and the A Train. "Jim Saggese has a group of strange relatives that call him up during the games. He has an entire group of people that call and drive him insane. They won't let him do the game. It's funny as hell."

I ask Marino if he plans to use FanCast to launch himself back into the world of radio. He jokes that the TV networks will soon come begging for him, then says: "To be honest with you, it gives me an opportunity to talk sports radio, and that's good enough. I'm 48 years old. I'm the vice president of a purse company. I have a real job. And if I get to do this and enjoy myself and drive people crazy and tell people in New York that Roger Clemens is a coward girly-boy because he won't stand up to the plate and let one of these Met pitchers drill him in the head -- isn't that fun? That's the whole point."

He says that when he does his show he might get 100 listeners and he might get two, and that it's nothing like his old radio gig. "It's a completely different attitude," he says. "This is like you're talking to a group of friends."

Which was Epstein's original idea, wasn't it?

"There's basically two premises to this entire thing. One is that there's a lot of people out there who want to be sportscasters," Epstein says. "I've never personally had that dream, but I knew a bunch of people who wanted to do it and were good but just never pursued it. So I sort of knew, or think, that there's a lot of people out there who want to do this, and that's been confirmed in the month that I've launched. Then the second premise is that some of those people -- and maybe some very small percentage -- will be more compelling to a certain audience than the guys on TV."

He says he's not looking to overthrow the existing broadcasting business completely. Even if FanCast succeeds, Brent Musburger still ought to be able to make a living.

"I think the one-size-fits-all solution works for a lot of people," Epstein says. "I mean, my grandmother, or whoever else, I think appreciates a certain type of sportscaster that's on television, but I'm not sure that sportscaster works for everybody. And my vision, or my dream, is that as the Internet and television converge, you'll have a menu of different sportscasters."

Next Page: So, what's the business plan?

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