The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Is Francesa’s return to WFAN really app-licable?
It was weird, even bizarre. After a week of blaring tabloid headlines in New York, with so much of the region tuned in at 3 p.m., Mike Francesa returned to WFAN after four months and acted as if it was any old Tuesday in any old May since 1989.
He made casual reference to his comeback and immediately went into an opening monologue touching on the Yankees and Astros, the Mets, LeBron, the NFL Draft, the Jets, A-Rod, Jay Wright. And, then, Mike Francesa stopped and foreshadowed something that “brought me back more than anything else … “Right after dis.” When he returned, we found what it was.
It’s the app!
Maybe you saw Francesa telling Newsday last week, “I didn’t decide to go back to WFAN until I was told I better not go back. For those behind (a ‘campaign’), that was the moment I decided to return.”
Francesa made no mention of revenge over his first 31⁄2-hour show. He refused to talk about his unfortunate pseudo-replacements, Chris Carlin, Maggie Gray and Bart Scott, who got pushed to an earlier and abbreviated time slot. Hot button topics like Boomer Esiason or Michael Kay? Nope.
Being denied a raise to be the WFAN savior after Craig Carton left, and ultimately taking a substantial pay cut after his hunt for another venture post-Dec. 15 wasn’t fruitful? Nope.
“To say there was faulty reporting,” Francesa said, “it’s not even worth saying it’s so laughable.”
And then he told us all again why he returned to his WFAN show even beyond wanting to return to his WFAN show.
It’s the app, stupid! Francesa, who has agreed to work at WFAN for 21⁄2 years, told listeners that he had all kinds of offers. A couple of shows on radio stations in New York — not ESPN — and a lucrative offer from Brent Musberger’s gambling-oriented media venture that would have included a satellite radio show. But, Francesa said, he wanted to try something new.
“I developed this app called Mike’s On,” Francesa said on Mike’s On. He said
he took it to Mike Levine, head of CAA Sports, and they are building it — as if it’s a spaceship — to be ready before the NFL season. “We’re going to break some ground,” Francesa, 64, said. His football show on Sunday, undoubtedly with picks, will be on the app, not on the radio.
There will be other voices on the app. Who knows, he said. One day his kids might work on it. He said the most opportune way to promote and connect to a long-running app is to have a radio show that allows him to talk about the app. Entercom, which owns WFAN, is also a partner in the app. Of course, there will be a subscription aspect to it.
Francesa also has started a Twitter, Facebook and Instagram component, mostly to promote the app. Of course, he won’t personally be on them. No time. And then Francesa went about promoting the app even more times than he mentioned he was broadcasting from Mike Francesa Studio, but, no way, he said, he ever would keep mentioning that.
It was during those moments I realized for the thousandth time that Mike Francesa can say anything, do anything and a big part of the biggest market in America will bow in obedience. He is the Sports Pope for more reasons than for his self-anointed infallibility. There’s blind-faith allegiance, too. He’s like Trump that way. Who else has the cojones to have an 18-month goodbye tour and return before the flowers bloom?
Tequila — no, not Casamigos that Francesa was hawking Tuesday — has gotten to me. So has the flu. Yet never had I thrown up because of nerves before 2006. I’d been on the radio countless times, but waiting on the other end of the phone for an appearance on “Mike & The Mad Dog” got me. They wanted to discuss my disagreements with Jim Calhoun. Francesa’s tight with Calhoun and I knew how hostile he could be. Yet I also held the show with some reverence and certainly respected its power. So I puked. The appearance went fine, and 12 years later Francesa could run me over in a car, app or no app, and wouldn’t know who I am.
Yet here’s the thing. Since Chris Russo left in 2008, although Francesa’s ratings held up — he will tell you that’s all that mattered — the quality of his solo show slowly deteriorated. Without Mad Dog, he came off as humorless and abusive to callers. He repeats stuff. He forgets stuff. And there’s no one to tell him he’s wrong when he’s wrong.
Remember after the Yankees fired Joe Girardi, he said, “Do I think I could manage the Yankees? Sure … I definitely could.”
Remember when he fell asleep on the air in 2012 — it’s right there on video — talking to Sweeney Murti?
“I was never asleep I promise you,” Francesa said.
Yeah, right.
And remember, right before he retired, he said, “It will be a different Christmas around here this year. That’s for sure. Santa Claus is leaving the building, boys. Good luck.”
Yankee manager, Pope and Santa Claus all in one lifetime. The arrogance is repulsive and magnetic, depending on the listener.
Even with the beautiful weather Tuesday, after a string of lousy days kept him off the golf course, it had to be about him: “God played a little trick on me.” Nobody else.
The question now: Is God’s little trick over? Or is it part of a bigger trick on Francesa? We know he pulled a Jay Leno and Marv Albert (who Francesa once harshly criticized) for elbowing his way back into his old seat. He doesn’t particularly care who he trampled. The station, or at least Entercom boss David Field, needed him. He needed the station. So folks at WFAN will at least temporarily try to play nice.
Yet here’s the thing. Francesa, once the greatest voice in sports talk, has lost some of his fastball. He called his first caller, the noted Ira from Staten Island, “Eli.” Sure, Alex Rodriguez asked to be his first guest and was treated to softball questions. Sure, Eli, his job restored with a new Giants regime, joked about how Francesa’s retirement was the shortest he’d ever seen. Sure, Jay Wright talked about how he wasn’t interested in the Knicks opening.
Yes, his first day, had strong guests. And he’s still able to reach back for an epic rant like about Eli’s being mistreated last fall or Penn State coach James Franklin running up the score. But, man, there’s a ho-hum aspect to his show, where the void is filled often by the comfort of his presence. Consistently Holding off Kay and ESPN in the ratings? Getting all sorts of people to buy his app?
I’m not so sure.
Who else has the cojones to have an 18-month goodbye tour and return before the flowers bloom?