I was a listener of the Score the first time around, Cordischi's solo show was usually solid (he was well-known locally to the point that his prostitute solicitation charge was a notable news story). But they had GRESH! soon out of college when he hadn't yet improved to passable like he is now, and the grating Amy Lawrence. "Coach" (don't remember his name) who worked with Amy was the Providence equivalent of Dale Arnold.
I believe they had pushed out Rome and went with a full local calendar, and probably not coincidentally folded within a year or two after that. Rome probably helped draw some Mass listeners who would otherwise listen to Boston sports talk. WEEI was an upgrade for me *at the time* when the Score was ending, and what shouldn't be underestimated are the FM status of WEEI and even The Sports Hub which doesn't have a local signal in RI. The Score never had professional sounding acoustics and some folks may settle for the Boston stations rather than listening local if the sound quality of 790AM is worse. We'll see what kind of product they put out. The one differentiation between the Providence and Boston audiences will probably be college basketball and numerous Yankees fans...if the PC Friars are in the mix they could steal some listeners.