With the dismissals — which, according to industry sources with knowledge of the situation, may not be the last ones Comcast makes — CSN loses two respected voices and an extraordinary amount of institutional knowledge on the Boston sports scene.
Neumeier is known as Neumy to anyone who is familiar with him — and pretty much anyone who has followed Boston sports (or horse racing, for that matter) over the last 40 years is familiar with him. The affable Neumeier has had an accomplished career though various high-profile gigs, including as a sports anchor at Channel 4, a horse racing expert on NBC, and for a couple of years a midday host at WEEI.
He had been at CSN since 2010. In May 2015, he returned to the network after making an extraordinary recovery from a stroke suffered the previous October, which required 5½ hours of surgery.
McAdam, who built his name as a Red Sox beat writer at the Providence Journal before moving to the Herald briefly and then CSN upon its launch in 2009, has been an informed voice-of-reason across various media, an approach that is not exactly in abundance nowadays. At CSN, he was one of the panelists on “The Baseball Show,” which was hosted by Neumeier.
The reason for the moves? As always, follow the money. Cord-cutting by cable subscribers is having a trickle-down effect on many regional cable networks. CSN, the home of the Celtics, also has decided to cut back on coverage of Boston teams with which they don’t own the broadcast rights. The Patriots, a huge traffic draw in-season, are the exception.
