Sometimes when I’m away from my Sirius XM radio and can’t listen to XM Home Plate, I’ll listen in to WFAN’s Mike Francesa to get his take on some of the day’s sports news.  As the standard-bearer for sports talk show hosts — and quite self-aware of that position — Francesa has a loyal following, and his strong position comes from having strong opinions.

Not always based entirely on facts, mind you, but strong opinions nonetheless.

Today, I listened to Francesa first dismiss the Winter Olympics as uninteresting to him, which is fine, he’s entitled to his thoughts, but in doing so indicated that no one else is really interested in them as well.  Later, a caller disputed that, bringing up snowboarding as a popular and growing sport.  Francesa replied, essentially, that no one cares about snowboarding.

Francesa is both right and wrong.  A 55-year-old sports talk show host who has made his living mostly talking about football, baseball and basketball doesn’t care.  A majority of his listeners, who also mostly follow those sports, don’t care.

But their sons and daughters, they care.  There’s an entire generation — and another one right behind it — who are more interested in snowboarding, mixed martial arts, and other “action” sports that Francesa pooh-poohs with a huff.

Discussion on sports radio shows go where the listeners and advertisers go.  If more listeners called in and talked about those sports more, maybe the hosts would have to take notice.

But to Francesa, nothing exists outside of the “big three.”  And if you’ve ever listened to him, nothing ever will.  But it doesn’t mean that “no one cares,” and I’d be interested to see how sports talk radio evolves over the next few years.