I think Shopp is coached to be arrogant, and some what pretentious to his audience. It makes for good radio. You can't have every host go through the motions on every broadcast. WGR is trying to establish and expand their listenership. He said it himself, "how do you get people to listen to sports radio, make it not about sports radio." And he's absolutely correct. There's plenty of time on their show when sports isn't even close to the topic.
Bulldog will talk about his wife/kids and their funny mishaps, trying to attach himself to the 40+ adult male market. I'm 21 years old, don't have kids, I don't identify with him, but I certainly can understand why most people will. Who listens to sports radio? Mostly adult men, correct? So what do you adult men like? (Speaking in pure demographic, maybe even stereotypical means) Beers, hot chicks, golf, then somewhere down the line, pop culture (movies, music, video games, etc). You can't please everybody, but I think their jobs are to entertain their base listenership.
I just think the one thing that I can criticise Shopp for is his sometimes just lack of factual knowledge. He gets on callers A LOT for not having their facts straight, yet he'll say things completely wrong and pass them off as fact. (he said the Miami heat won the championship in 2004, wrong it was 2006, there are other examples, that's just what comes to mind). And back to the appeal to the demographic point, Shopp gets on the NFL a lot for their marketing techniques, that it is only for the hardcore, total fantasy football nerds, not for the traditional, "for the love of the game" sports fan. But the same is true for WGR in general. They have "ball girls." IE, hot chicks that go promote their events because they're hot. If WGR was sports for the "love of the game," they wouldn't need hot chicks just to get people to their promotions and such. Its all just appealing to one's demographic. This was a long rant, I'm out.
