Sage Steele seems to emerge unscathed from ESPN shakeup
Sage Steele is coming off the road.
Just weeks after the veteran ESPN anchor lost her full-time hosting gig on “NBA Countdown,” Steele is returning to Bristol to be a morning anchor of “SportsCenter” — and more surprisingly, she’s rumored to be the sidekick on a new TV show hosted by Mike Greenberg, Sporting News reported.
The move comes as a surprise after ESPN seemed to be reducing Steele’s role — she was replaced by Michelle Beadle as the full-time host on “NBA Countdown” — but it now seems apparent ESPN was merely shifting its roster around.
Steele, who joined the Worldwide Leader in 2007, may have beaten out a laundry list of rumored candidates for the second spot on Greenberg’s new show, including Fox Sports superstar Katie Nolan, whom ESPN tried luring away from the network and her show, “Garbage Time,” earlier this year.
Greenberg’s new morning show spells the end as we know it of “Mike & Mike,” the 18-year morning radio show and simulcast featuring Greenberg and Mike Golic. ESPN announced it would be retooling the long-running program back in January. Greenberg’s new show is expected to contain pieces of “SportsCenter” while remaining a traditional morning talk show, Sports Illustrated reported.
“Mike & Mike” is expected to continue running as a radio-only program — perhaps a new name will be in order — with Golic teaming up with longtime ESPN anchor Trey Wingo.
Greenberg recently said he regrets how the news of his breakup with Golic was handled.
“My one regret in all this is if we do break up — and that’s certainly a very real possibility, I’m not denying that at all — I would have really liked the first place our audience heard about that to have been from us,” Greenberg said in an interview with Sporting News in March. “Obviously, that’s not a possibility anymore.”
Steele, 44, has been involved in various controversies recently, from beefing with ESPN radio host Dan Le Batard in January, when she criticized protesters of President Trump’s travel ban for bothering her commute, to shaming Bucs wide receiver Mike Evans for kneeling during the national anthem.