Mike Francesa’s ‘crawl’ back to WFAN is fun, heated and doomed
With Mike Francesa back, WFAN suddenly has its muscle again. Francesa brings juice to a station that had suddenly lacked it after the attrition that began with his fake retirement and Craig Carton’s real arrest.
“It is two sentences,” Sid Rosenberg, a former WFAN host and now a political commentator on WABC’s “Bernie & Sid in the Morning,” said. “He needs them. They need him. That’s all you need to write.”
Francesa, 64, has often been hypocritical, and he is once again. Years ago, he crushed Marv Albert when Albert tried to steal Ian Eagle’s Nets play-by-play job. That wasn’t OK in Francesa’s book, but pulling his own Jay Leno is apparently just fine as he swiped the seats from under his afternoon replacements, Chris Carlin, Maggie Gray and Bart Scott.
So the buzz is back at the FAN, though warm feelings are not. There is barely anyone in the FAN’s offices who wanted Francesa to return. This was done at a corporate level.
The vice president of his station, Mark Chernoff, did not want Francesa back, according to sources. The morning team of Boomer Esiason and Gregg Giannotti did not want him back. CMB, of course, did not want him back. But many fans did, and now they will have him and the intrigue of the FAN.
The morning show’s public reaction will be interesting. Esiason recently described Francesa as “classless.” Giannotti, who is a skillful host, has a hot streak.
So for listeners, this is somewhat of a win, even if Francesa’s once 96 mph fastball clocks in at around 88 now on most days. He can dial it up at times, but, if judged on its merits and not clouded by the host’s name, he has not been what he once was for years.
His egomaniacal habit of denying opinions he uttered a day earlier is like rubbernecking — its ridiculousness is entertaining. With no plan after his “retirement” and with the media landscape having changed, Francesa was lost.
“To be completely honest, he is not the guy he was before,” Rosenberg said. “The money is not there. Even if he was Mike Francesa of 2005. The money is not there. He was being unrealistic with his ego so he kind of crawled back to WFAN.”
While Francesa got what he wanted, he is not the only winner with this move. The “Michael Kay Show” now receives a chance to finally beat Francesa in the ratings. Kay’s show never defeated Francesa in a three-month ratings book, but it squeaked by CMB in the latest round.
For CMB, Francesa’s total disregard for them may be the best thing that could happen to them as a team. Carlin, Maggie and Bart may not be a strong trio, but they were put in an impossible spot, needing to be a show built on personality, despite the fact they didn’t know one another well before their first segment.
Now, they are sympathetic in some respects and have a chance to develop chemistry in a smaller, probably more appropriate spot. They do come across as if they truly like each other, so maybe they will mesh.
Today, WFAN is a much more interesting place than it was yesterday. But it seems very unlikely this final round of Francesa ends well. How can it? Would anyone trust another Francesa “retirement?” Will he ever go on his own accord?
He may be destined to become Willie Mays with the Mets, as the years go on.
Listeners had known about the warts on his personality, but now they are even starker with this public Leno-like power grab. It is hard to see how this ends well; especially if Kay finally beats him.
Still, in the end, Francesa underestimated how much the spotlight is like oxygen for him, and FAN couldn’t resist his discounted offer. Now comes the fun part.