After his much hyped mid-December 2017, retirement, iconic WFAN host Mike Francesa returned to the New York City sports radio station’s airwaves about a year ago. Since then, his compulsive tendency to rewrite history has gotten far worse, which is saying something. Francesa teamed with Chris Russo on one of the most all-time successful sports-talk programs, theMike and the Mad Dog show, from 1989 to 2008 on WFAN (660 AM, 101.9 FM and Internet streaming) until the “Mad Dog” defected to SiriusXM (and subsequently MLB TV). Francesa flew solo starting as of September 2008. Long presiding over the number-one radio show in the NYC-area afternoon drive demo, Francesa and ESPN rival Michael Kay find themselves locked in a close battle for sports dominance. (Check back for updates on the winter ratings book.) Coming out of his brief retirement, “sports doctor” Francesa appears to be sick of sports or vice versa. He’s lost his grip on the rhetorical fastball. One wonders how long WFAN or Mike himself, who is operating without a contract with the Entercom-owned station, will keep going through the motions. And the madness is hardly restricted to March.
Has Mike Francesa Lost It?
For the in-denial Francesa, a.k.a. the sports “pope,” as some media types nickname him, it’s one condescending, eerily contradictory statement after another, even during the same broadcast. Plus, he refuses to own up to bad picks and predictions, along with constant celebrity name dropping and bragging about access to same. He often demonstrates seeming unfamiliarity with many of the college or pro sports teams that he’s supposed to be “religiously” covering. Francesa is also plugging a paid app that apparently no one wants to subscribe to.
In the process, his radio show has become a target-rich environment for pranksters to call in — after which Mike will engage in a long-winded monologue about how such trolls don’t bother him and why they are just wasting his valuable time.
Since fading-star Francesa runs his show mostly from a home studio on Long Island, the content gives a new meaning to phoning it in.
Back Afta This!
The hilarious @BackAftaThis Twitter feed documents Francesa’s ongoing foibles. The hardworking proprietor of the account, who goes by the screen name Funhouse, just gave a compelling interview to Sports by Brooks.
“The backstory on that is, I had listened to Mike and the Mad Dog since the 90s. Loved everything about it. They were magical together. I rarely called, but I enjoyed the program.
“When Dog left for Sirius, it was like a funeral. Nobody knew what was next. It took very little time to discover that they need each other. Badly.
“They were a perfect team. Appointment-radio every day.
“Because their solo shows overlapped, I chose to listen to Mike every day. I didn’t need a subscription to listen to Mike, and frankly, listening to Mad Dog solo for hours at a time is a lot to handle. He’s a bit looney.
“But as I listened to Mike working solo every day, a lot of things started to bug me.
“He’s never wrong. He treats his callers like garbage. He lies and contradicts himself constantly. All of it.
“So I bought some software which allowed me to record his YES show, and later his FOX Sports 1 show, and I began posting his clips on YouTube.
“That lasted for a few years until WFAN shut down my YouTube account. I guess they didn’t like me pointing out
Mike’s character flaws.“By that time, I had already started the first Twitter account, and I was now posting everything on Twitter.
“Make no mistake, if WFAN didn’t want me to post clips from his show on Twitter, they would have shut me down already.
“No publicity is bad publicity in the radio game, especially when he’s locked in a ratings war with Michael Kay…
“The funny thing about Mike’s show is, as much as he irritates me, I still got a lot of enjoyment out of listening.
“That is, until the last six months or so. It was a mistake for him to come back after leaving WFAN on December 15. He’s
putting a terrible product on the air daily.”“He’s beyond miserable, his voice is shot, he repeats the same stories dozens of times, and he hates his callers.
“It seems like the only reason he has to turn his mic on every day is to sell subscriptions to his app, which has become a punchline to his hardcore fans, and to relive some past glory…”
April Fool’s
Here’s a selection of some of the greatest Funhouse clips:
To add to Entercom’s problems, WFAN’s all-important morning drive show, now known as Boomer & Gio, is currently tanking in the ratings. Former host Craig Carton may be headed to jail after being found guilty of an alleged Ponzi scheme. A federal court sentencing hearing is on the docket for April 5.
[Featured Image: Wikipedia Commons, CC0 1.0, Public Domain Dedication]