L.A. sports fans are a different breed. You’ve got the glitz of the Lakers, the blue-collar grit of the Dodgers, and a weirdly complex relationship with two different NFL teams that just recently moved back. But if you want to know what’s actually happening in the locker rooms at Chavez Ravine or the Crypto.com Arena, you probably flip to ESPN Radio Los Angeles. It’s been the heartbeat of the city’s sports conversation for years. Yet, if you’ve tuned in lately, things feel... different. The signal moved. The voices changed. Even the way we consume the "Lakers post-game blowup" has shifted from the car dashboard to a podcast feed.
It's 710 AM. That’s the frequency everyone knows. But honestly, staying relevant in the second-largest media market in the country is basically an extreme sport in itself.
The 710 AM Identity Crisis and the Move to Good Karma
For the longest time, KSPN was owned and operated directly by Disney/ESPN. That changed. In a move that signaled a massive shift in how national networks view local radio, ESPN entered into a "long-term local marketing agreement" with Good Karma Brands. What does that actually mean for you? It means while the branding stays the same, the boots on the ground are managed by a company that specializes in making radio feel local again.
They had to.
National syndication is dying a slow death in markets like Los Angeles. Nobody in Santa Monica wants to hear a guy in a studio in Bristol, Connecticut, talk about the NBA playoff bracket for four hours when the Dodgers just signed a Japanese superstar to a record-breaking deal. We want local heat. We want people who sat in the 405 traffic to get to the game.
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Mason and Ireland: The Dynamic That Shouldn't Work
You can't talk about ESPN Radio Los Angeles without talking about Steve Mason and John Ireland. It’s arguably the most successful sports talk show in the history of the city. Why? Because they’re basically an old married couple who happens to know everything about the Lakers.
Ireland is the "Voice of the Lakers." He’s literally on the plane with the team. Mason is the pop-culture-obsessed, unpredictable counter-weight. They’ve been together for over 25 years across different stations and iterations. That kind of longevity is unheard of. Most radio duos flame out after five years because they can’t stand each other’s breathing. Mason and Ireland survived because they realized that L.A. sports fans don't just want stats. They want a "vibe."
They talk about movies. They talk about what they ate for dinner. Then, they pivot into a 20-minute deep dive on why the Lakers' defensive rotations are failing. It’s conversational. It’s real.
The Battle for the Commute
L.A. is a driving city. Or a sitting-in-traffic city, depending on how you look at it. This makes the "Afternoon Drive" slot the most valuable real estate in the world. For years, the competition between ESPN Radio Los Angeles and their rivals over at AM 570 (KLAC) has been fierce.
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While 570 has the Dodgers' broadcast rights—which is a massive advantage—710 has leaned heavily into the "Lakers Station" identity. In Los Angeles, the Lakers are king. Even when they’re bad, they’re the only thing people want to talk about. ESPN 710 has built its entire programming schedule around that gravity. From Sedano & Kap to the morning shows, everything eventually circles back to LeBron, AD, and the purple and gold.
Why the Digital Shift Actually Saved the Station
Let’s be real. Nobody carries a transistor radio anymore. If you’re under 40, you might not even know how to find the "AM" band in a modern car's infotainment system. ESPN Radio Los Angeles survived the "cord-cutting" of radio by becoming an omni-channel beast.
- They leaned into the ESPN LA app.
- They started streaming everything on YouTube. Seeing the hosts' faces changed the connection.
- They broke their shows into "best of" podcast segments.
If you miss Travis and Sliwa in the morning because you were on a Zoom call, you just grab the podcast at 11:00 AM. That accessibility is the only reason local sports talk still exists. The "radio" part is just the delivery mechanism; the "content" is the product.
The Controversy of "National" vs. "Local"
One of the biggest complaints fans have had over the years is the intrusion of national ESPN programming. When the station carries Greeny or other national shows, the local numbers usually dip. L.A. fans are notoriously provincial. We don't care about the New York Jets. We don't care about the Cowboys—well, okay, L.A. has a lot of Cowboys fans, but you get the point.
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The tension between fulfilling a national corporate mandate and serving the local fan is constant. Good Karma Brands has tried to tilt the scales back toward local voices, recognizing that the "L.A. sound" is specific. It’s laid back but incredibly demanding.
The Key Voices You Hear Every Day
- Travis Rodgers and Allen Sliwa: The morning anchors. They have the impossible task of waking up a city that stayed up too late watching a West Coast night game.
- Jorge Sedano: A national powerhouse who stays rooted in the local scene. His chemistry with Scott Kaplan provides that "big city" energy.
- Scott Kaplan: "The Great Kaplan." He brings an edgy, slightly chaotic energy that keeps the show from feeling too corporate.
How to Actually Get the Most Out of the Station
If you're just tuning in to 710 AM on your dial, you're missing half the experience. The "Mandos"—the loyal listeners of the Mason and Ireland show—have created an entire subculture. They have an annual awards show (The Mandos) that sells out live venues. It’s a community.
To really engage, you’ve got to follow the Twitter (X) feeds of the producers. Guys like Greg Bergman or Morales are often the ones stirring the pot behind the scenes, creating the bits that turn into week-long running jokes.
Actionable Ways to Engage with ESPN LA:
- Download the ESPN LA App: It sounds corporate, but the stream is higher quality than the AM signal, which can get fuzzy near the mountains or in parking garages.
- Watch on YouTube: Seeing the body language during a heated argument between Sedano and Kap adds a layer of entertainment you can't get from audio alone.
- Attend Live Remotes: The station frequently broadcasts from bars and restaurants around L.A. (especially during the playoffs). It’s the best way to realize these guys are exactly the same off-air as they are on-air.
- The Podcast Feed: Search "Mason & Ireland" or "Sedano & Kap" on Spotify. They strip out the commercials, turning a four-hour broadcast into a lean 90 minutes of sports talk.
The Verdict on the Future
Local radio isn't dying; it's just migrating. ESPN Radio Los Angeles has proven that if you have the right personalities, people will follow you from AM to FM to an app to a live event at a brewery. As long as the Lakers keep making drama and the Dodgers keep chasing rings, there will be a need for a place where fans can call in and vent.
The station serves as a communal porch for a city that is often too spread out to feel like a single community. That’s the real power of 710 AM. It’s not the signal; it’s the conversation. If you want to stay ahead of the curve, stop thinking of it as a radio station and start thinking of it as the primary source for the L.A. sports lifestyle. Tune in for the scores, but stay for the personalities who actually live and breathe the city.
The next time the Lakers make a trade, don't check a national news site. Turn on 710. You’ll hear exactly what the city is feeling in real-time, which is something a national algorithm just can't replicate. Keep the app updated, follow the hosts on social media to see the "behind the scenes" chaos, and don't be afraid to call in—just make sure you have a point and you're ready to defend it.