Onrait tall enough to draw a crowd at home
Fans still line up for highlight show co-host even if they can’t see him on television
Jay Onrait, a Canadian co-host of an American sports highlights show, was inside a small office with a thick sweater, a thicker moustache and several stacks of books to sign. Most were inscribed with “Happy Holidays,” he said, “but I have been putting ‘Toronto Maple Leafs: 2016-17 Stanley Cup champs’ in a few of them.”
In the hallway outside, near the escalators leading down from the food court of a bustling downtown Toronto banking tower, more than 40 people had already lined up to meet the 41-year-old former SportsCentre anchor.
Dan O’Toole, his fellow TSN defector, was not present, though they were scheduled to reunite for a sec- ond signing, later in the day.
“You’re off TV for two years in this country, it’s a long time,” Onrait said as he signed. “You wonder, ‘Are people going to show up to these events? Am I just going to be sitting there at a table by myself, kind of twiddling my thumbs?’ ”
Onrait and O’Toole left TSN, and Canada, to join a start-up venture in Los Angeles, as anchors at Fox Sports 1 in July 2013.
Onrait recently revealed they would be staying for at least another two years, with a contract carrying them through 2017.
By the end of their run in Canada, it was not uncommon for Onrait and O’Toole to draw double the audience of their main competition at Rogers Sportsnet. Their U.S. show is not available in Canada, which gave Onrait pause as he embarked on a crossCanada tour for his new book: Number Two: More Short Tales From A Very Tall Man.
Instead, for his stops in Calgary and Edmonton, he said they lined up for two hours.
“I was just like, ‘Wow, this is incredible,’ ” he said. “I’m very grateful that people are still somewhat interested in hearing about me pooping my pants.”
Onrait and O’Toole gained popularity among Canadian viewers with their irreverence, a light-hearted treatment of sports highlights glossed with a brush of broad comedy.
Their act caught the attention of The Wall Street Journal, which ran a feature article that drew attention in the U.S., in 2012: “Why Can’t We Have Canada’s SportsCentre?”
Within a year, it did, though not to large initial audiences. In April, New York radio host Mike Francesa, whose show was being simulcast on a Fox network, torched the two Canadians and the show “they brought from Canada,” complaining “I don’t even know their names, nobody knows who they are.”
In June, comedians Amy Poehler and Seth Meyers thrashed the network during a rant on the coverage of the women’s World Cup in the U.S. Poehler asked: “Why is the women’s World Cup on secondary channels like Fox Sports 1? Nobody gets Fox Sports 1.”
Onrait and O’Toole responded with a light-hearted segment, including a faux promo for Meyers: “Late Night with Seth Meyers — You fell asleep during Fallon.”
“And then Seth Meyers sent us an email, like, ‘Well done boys,’ ” Onrait said.
“The whole thing is just an adventure. Every week something different happens.”
Regis Philbin, the long-time talk show host, sent both anchors an apple pie and a bottle of Jack Daniel’s, Onrait said, just “because he wanted to send us the most American gift he could possibly send us.”
Onrait, who lives with his wife and infant daughter in Santa Monica, Calif., said he can picture making the U.S. his permanent home. His daughter was born there.
“I’m doing exactly what I always wanted to do as a kid,” he said. “I wanted to just host SportsCentre — or SportsDesk, at the time — so once I achieved that, it was like, ‘All right, anything after this is just a bonus.’
“So this is just a bonus. My job is just a bonus now.”
“The whole thing is just an adventure. Every week something different happens.” JAY ONRAIT FOX SPORTS 1 CO-HOST