OT: Dan Bernstein fired The Score

[Jcool0]

Station vice president Mitch Rosen went on the air at about 1:50 p.m. to share the news in a brief statement. In an email to staff obtained by the Sun-Times, Rosen said, “On behalf of [Audacy market manager] Kevin Cassidy and myself, we want to let all of you know that Dan Bernstein no longer works at the Score. We thank Dan for his time here and wish him nothing but the best. Please reach out to me if you have any questions. Thank you.”

That won’t stop The Score from talking about Bernstein. Matt Spiegel said at the top of his show after the announcement, “The Score said goodbye to one of its most famous, influential and impactful hosts. Dan Benstein is gone, and we won’t shy away from discussing him. We’ve been advised not to talk about the events of the last week, but we won’t shy away from talking about Bernsy and us and The Score and our relationship at time along the way.” ....

.... In Nielsen’s fall ratings book, Bernstein’s show with Marshall Harris, including twice-weekly appearances by Leila Rahimi, earned a 7.4 share among men aged 25-54, the highest at the station.

https://chicago.suntimes.com/sports-media/2025/03/21/dan-bernstein-is-out-at-the-score-after-social-media-flare-up

[kodo]

I'm confused, he was fired for tweeting a picture of him catching a fish?

[Jcool0]

I'm confused, he was fired for tweeting a picture of him catching a fish?

Bernstein’s ouster follows an ugly exchange March 14 on X that kept him off the air all week and led to his removal from the board of directors of charity Camp One Step. The previous day, Bernstein posted on X a picture of him holding a northern pike he caught with the message, “This was a helluva fight.” Later, an X user accused Bernstein of killing the fish, to which Bernstein responded that it was “released successfully.”

After the user called Bernstein a liar, Bernstein responded, “I never respond to trolls, but questioning my sportsmanship and conservation awareness sets me off. Wanna fight? I’m a bad enemy, [expletive].” The back-and-forth continued, and Bernstein threatened to dox the user before posting, “Want your kids involved?” The posts have been deleted, but screenshots are available.

[jnrjr79]

This was probably always the inevitable end for Bernstein. I used to listen to him a good bit. He's smart, but always thinks he's smarter than he is. He was kind of refreshing in contrast to some of the utterly inane local sports talk alternatives given his different style, but he sure can be grating after a while.

[fleet]

I will actually miss him as he was/is a familiar part of the media fabric family of Chicago sports, even though I dislike his personality. I hesitate to bring up politics, but politics were part of this storyline in terms of Bernstein’s replies Vs this other guy. Bernstein seemed to believe the attacks on his fish story were politically motivated, and then he lost it. A pet peeve of mine is when people like Clay Travis intentionally bring their personal politics into the sports media arena. And Bernstein would sometimes do as well. If I were in sports media, I like to think I wouldn’t. Just don’t do it. Nothing good can happen.

[Dengness9]

See ya!

Of all the words that come to mind regarding this guy, I can say none of them here on this board. That’s how low my opinion is of him, I can only conjure up expletives.

[HearshotKDS]

Good riddance to bad rubbish. Not the first time Dans big mouth has gotten him into trouble and if you arent able to tell online trolls "F*** off" and move on with your day then you shouldnt be on social media, especially as a public figure. To immediately go to "i will dox you and involve your kids" over something as ridiculous as a random person speculating you hurt a fish you caught is sick in the head.

[SalmonsSuperfan]

I'm confused, he was fired for tweeting a picture of him catching a fish?

saw this last week: he tweeted at some guy "I'm going after your kids" or something similarly insane. semi-surprised they actually fired him.

[Jcool0]

Read on Twitter

[fleet]

Good riddance to bad rubbish. Not the first time Dans big mouth has gotten him into trouble and if you arent able to tell online trolls "F*** off" and move on with your day then you shouldnt be on social media, especially as a public figure. To immediately go to "i will dox you and involve your kids" over something as ridiculous as a random person speculating you hurt a fish you caught is sick in the head.

I saw this often said on Twitter. What else did Bernstein do to get him in trouble?

Regarding Dan’s sensitive response about the fish, knowing his outlook on things, people hurting an animal is probably something he rails against in his personal life. So to be called on that in public had to be striking a main nerve.

[dougthonus]

Didn't really listen to him any. Pretty lousy to get fired over going back and forth with a twitter troll, even if he took it too far, I'm sure people take it to far with him _all the time_. Just a double standard for people whom are public personalities vs those whom aren't.

On the other hand, everyone in this space should understand that already and know they have to behave at a certain standard, and this guy seemed like a jerk anyway, so no loss IMO, but man if every one who was a jerk got fired over a thing they said on social media, there'd be a whole lotta chaos out there.

[Kurt Heimlich]

Hyperbolically speaking, he was the most insufferable chicago sports talk guy that inexplicably (to me) somehow always found a new time slot and partner to stay on air. So I just never listened to him since forever be it on radio live or in YT clips. With so many options out there his pretentious, mediocre commentary/voice was never worth listening to. Cool that is opens up the Score for better voices/content on the YT/streaming side.

[HearshotKDS]

Good riddance to bad rubbish. Not the first time Dans big mouth has gotten him into trouble and if you arent able to tell online trolls "F*** off" and move on with your day then you shouldnt be on social media, especially as a public figure. To immediately go to "i will dox you and involve your kids" over something as ridiculous as a random person speculating you hurt a fish you caught is sick in the head.

I saw this often said on Twitter. What else did Bernstein do to get him in trouble?

Regarding Dan’s sensitive response about the fish, knowing his outlook on things, people hurting an animal is probably something he rails against in his personal life. So to be called on that in public had to be striking a main nerve.

The Aiyana Cristal incident is the biggest one that comes to my mind. I know he got into a spat with one the barstool guys but that seems to be their shtick so not sure how much you hold that against Berstein.

[Jcool0]

Good riddance to bad rubbish. Not the first time Dans big mouth has gotten him into trouble and if you arent able to tell online trolls "F*** off" and move on with your day then you shouldnt be on social media, especially as a public figure. To immediately go to "i will dox you and involve your kids" over something as ridiculous as a random person speculating you hurt a fish you caught is sick in the head.

I saw this often said on Twitter. What else did Bernstein do to get him in trouble?

Regarding Dan’s sensitive response about the fish, knowing his outlook on things, people hurting an animal is probably something he rails against in his personal life. So to be called on that in public had to be striking a main nerve.

The Aiyana Cristal incident is the biggest one that comes to my mind. I know he got into a spat with one the barstool guys but that seems to be their shtick so not sure how much you hold that against Berstein.

The Barstool thing was 100% on Berstein and him being a huge a**hole. But nothing really to get him in trouble.

[Jello Biafra]

Dan had to talk about bad teams 4 hours a day 250 days a year for 30 years. That's a lot of time to talk about nothing. Pretty sure I'd get axed a lot quicker. Despite not liking or agreeing with everything he said, Dan was probably the best host in Chicago radio over the span of his career. Laurence Holmes is the best now imo. Dan was at his best when he played Ackroyd to Terry Boers Belushi, but all the years of talking eventually put him on the Mike North kook train, especially in the later years when he was cast as the clown instead of the straight guy.

[evilboy]

While he was good at his job, there were also few more deserving of his fate. For a guy that talked so much about mental health, therapy, marijuana use, he never walked the talk. He'll have to live with that.

[waffle]

he may have been a miserable cur, he'd probably agree with that, I enjoyed listening to him and he did know his stuff. And his memory was NUTS. He's hardly the only self important blow hard out there, it's just that he also had a bad bad BAD temper.

[SalmonsSuperfan]

Read on Twitter

Not a very funny headline tbh. It’s like they were trying to imitate a lowbrow British tabloid and failed, couldn’t even get simple humor right. Maybe you’re linking to a lowbrow tabloid but I assume it’s sun times which nowadays is fundamentally no different. Well, it never had a good reputation, but they had some good sportswriters they just laid off. I assume that’s why they published this article “we just got rid of all our staff, but look at that yokel over there! Our headline was generated by chat got with the prompt ‘make a good joke about a sports shock jockey’”

Anyway, I assume Bernstein is being replaced by hatsune miku and the sun times chatgpt specialist will “write” an article about it.

I assume this was just an excuse to lay Bernstein off and not pay severance.

[fleet]

While he was good at his job, there were also few more deserving of his fate. For a guy that talked so much about mental health, therapy, marijuana use, he never walked the talk. He'll have to live with that.

I keep asking why that is, and nobody comes up with a good answer other than he did ‘something’ before. I just want to know what.

[jnrjr79]

Read on Twitter

Not a very funny headline tbh. It’s like they were trying to imitate a lowbrow British tabloid and failed, couldn’t even get simple humor right. Maybe you’re linking to a lowbrow tabloid but I assume it’s sun times which nowadays is fundamentally no different. Well, it never had a good reputation, but they had some good sportswriters they just laid off. I assume that’s why they published this article “we just got rid of all our staff, but look at that yokel over there! Our headline was generated by chat got with the prompt ‘make a good joke about a sports shock jockey’”

Anyway, I assume Bernstein is being replaced by hatsune miku and the sun times chatgpt specialist will “write” an article about it.

I assume this was just an excuse to lay Bernstein off and not pay severance.

I sincerely doubt The Score wanted to “lay off” its most popular host.