MIKE & THE MORE DOUGH
FRANCESA BETS YOU’LL PAY $8.99 A MONTH FOR APP
MIKE Francesa, a millionaire many times over, is asking his most loyal fans to trust him with their credit-card information and deduct $8.99 each month or $98.99 for the year for his laughably overpriced app.
He wants people to fork over their money mostly for shows they receive for free nearly 18 hours a week on WFAN.
In the history of bad media ideas, this is not the worst, but it might end up in the conversation.
What will you get? There will be an exclusive Sunday morning NFL program and a new Saturday college football program. You will also be able to view Francesa do his free radio show. Plus, he said he will react to breaking news. The wallets he is reaching for are those of his most crazed fans. Maybe he will save his gambling picks for the app, for people who want to lose even more money.
To borrow his phraseology, only a fool would sign up for this deal. But make no mistake about it, Francesa thinks you are out there.
He decided on this price, sources told The Post. No one else — not even Entercom, FAN’s parent company, or CAA, which are minority partners — had a say. Francesa did not return a text seeking comment.
In comparison, SiriusXM goes for around $13 per month and includes Howard Stern exclusively, play-by-play and all the music you could ever want.
According to sources, Friday’s rollout is the first of potentially two phases of the app.
Phase 1 features just Francesa, though he is not really offering that much. The video of his free radio show, for example, is a kind of nothing-burger. Simulcasts work on TV, not on mobile. Do you have time to stare at Francesa on a phone or iPad for nearly 20 hours a week?
Francesa also is promising to break in on the app, after something happens — like, for instance the Urban Meyer fiasco on Wednesday. Most of us can wait to hear his opinions because it isn’t 1994 anymore, and takes are everywhere.
At 64, off “retirement,” does Francesa really want to be on call 24/7? Also, what happens to the app during next summer’s sabbatical? When football season ends, what do you get? It would be hard to pluck down $98.99 for the year without knowing these answers.
The Saturday and Sunday shows are exclusive to the app, but he will have already talked about those subjects for free all week. What type of guests, if any, will Francesa be able to pull when his audience, even if successful, will be severely limited?
Meanwhile, Phase 2 of the app — if it ever happens — could be a sort of Francesa and Friends, according to sources. Francesa could expand to have other voices on the service.
The idea of a Francesa app maybe could work in some form. To make more than a million bucks in revenue at $8.99, he needs just 10,000 people to sign up. It doesn’t sound that improbable, except when you realize he is barely offering anything not already free. It is kind of nuts.