Neil Best from Newsday joins the show to talk about all things New York -- from the new stadiums to the old TV feuds and radio rifts. I also ask if, as someone who covers sports media as a member of that media, he feels like he’s a NARC.

But first we start in the Bronx. And in Queens. Which new stadium is better for the respective fan bases? Best brings up the point that one of the stadiums plays small but has an enormous stadium structure surrounding the field of play. The other has a smaller structure, but a much bigger field of play. We discuss how each building really is a brick-and-mortar look at each team’s ownership, and wonder how anyone can afford anything in either building.

Much has been said about the exorbitant prices for some of the seats at both Yankee Stadium and Citi Field. Best even wrote that the unsold premium seats will be the most prominent sports business story of the spring and summer. Did the Mets and Yankees terribly miscalculate the interest in these premium -- and extremely overpriced -- seats, or were both franchises simply struck by the downturn in the economy like the rest of us? In other words, are people not spending $800k for ONE SEASON TICKET at Yankee Stadium because they no longer have the money, or because they finally reached a point where the baseball experience just isn’t worth that much money? Best brings up the PR aspect of sitting in those seats as well. There isn’t a CEO in New York who wants to be caught sitting in those seats right now. It’s a real problem, and will be a problem for the Jets and Giants as well.

We talk about the ‘double-secret’ negotiations between YES Network and Cablevision and equate that to those between the cable providers and the NFL Network. The first negotiations between YES and Cablevision were so terrible the cable provider didn’t put YES on it’s lineup the first year. Millions of people couldn’t see Yankees games. A deal was finally struck, and things seem to have worked out for both parties. That will help during this round of negotiations. So why can’t the NFL Network learn from this?

Best is a proponent of the ‘a la carte’ system of picking the stations you want on your cable system. But he realizes it’s not going to happen. He thinks that the non sports fan, lost in this mess, is the consumer who is

hit the worst. They end up paying the most while getting the least, as the premiums put on sports channels like ESPN, YES, NFLN etc are what drives up the prices of cable TV.

We shift gears to talk about the most important team in New York? If all the sports teams were good, which team matters the most? Best says it’s the Yankees, which seems obvious. But its his order of the rest of the teams that surprised me. Best really thinks of New York as a baseball town, it seems.

For years, perhaps the most influential ‘team’ in New York was Mike and the Mad Dog. Best had all the information on their split, so I wanted to ask how things have been for both Mike Francessa and Chris Russo since their split. Has Mike been okay on his own? Is Russo happy with autonomy, tons of money ($3 million bucks a year for a satellite company that is basically bankrupt already) and a relatively small footprint on the radio landscape?

And what happened to Max Kellerman at ESPN 1050? Nobody knows the full story, but we do know that it resulted in more Colin Cowherd, which nobody likes. Best explains what we all know -- ESPN can’t bill a show like The Herd as a national program when it wasn’t on in New York. Even if he gets no ratings, he has to be on in New York because being in New York helps sell everywhere else.

We shift to talk about Best’s role as a media watchdog. What’s it like covering his friends and colleagues? Do people hush whenever he walks into a room? Does he hear whispers of ‘NARC’ when he’s in line for press box food? Best actually thinks that people come to him to dish gossip. He’s actually getting more information now than before. So how much can he use? How much information does he know that is ‘off the record’ and how much can he actually report?

News comes out every day from blogs (and podcasts) about media people. Sometimes news that Best may know, but didn’t report because he’s an insider. People don’t realize that it’s much easier to write things about big-time media folks when you’re an outsider. So I ask Best if he finds it hard to do his job while being a media insider? And is he concerned that with blogs (and podcasts) breaking news all the time, he runs the risk of getting scooped on information he was holding? In other words, with blogs being so prevalent, are there any rules for running with information? Is anything off the record anymore? And what’s more important -- being right, or being first?

Last, we somehow delve into the world of synchronized skating. This is some crazy stuff.

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