Anyone else listen to this ESPN radio show? They are on TV too, on one of the ESPN channels but generally just the first 60-90 minutes of the 3 hour show are on TV. Anyway, Its the best. The fucking absolute best. No other sports talk show comes close IMO, Dan Patrick is great but these two guys have a great chemistry and they have a nice back and forth with their behind the glass producer and sound guys. I can’t put my finger on exactly why I love it so much but if you like sports talk radio at all, you owe it to yourself to listen to this. They do a podcast too so you can get an hour long summary version of the 3 hours or each hour of the show distilled down into roughly 36 minute segments.
Sadly, its coming to an end soon as SVP is going to be hosting a sort of combination SportsCenter/network talk show late nights on ESPN.
I start work at 6am so if I get out early around 2:30 pm I can catch them on the radio on the way home until 3pm. I am really warming up to SVP and his way of doing things, but still am not the biggest Russillo fan yet. Ryen does have some good insight into some issues, though, and his chemistry with SVP is indeed great.
At 3pm, the local mid Michigan ESPN radio station switches to The Huge Show out of the west Michigan area (Grand Rapids) with Bill Simonson and he is pretty decent and gets a lot of the main Michigan sports guys on including people like Tom Izzo. I am not sure if you would get him in Detroit, though Adam, but he may be worth a look.
3pm isn’t drive time for me, sadly. And my job is such that I can’t really listen to talk radio; it takes too much attention and distracts the heck out of me.
Anyone else listen to this ESPN radio show? They are on TV too, on one of the ESPN channels but generally just the first 60-90 minutes of the 3 hour show are on TV. Anyway, Its the best. The fucking absolute best
I completely agree. I can never listen to them live – so I download the podcast and I’ve been very bummed to hear that in September that they are splitting ways.
I’ve listened to ESPN radio for a long time, when Dan Patrick had Rob Dibble on his show 10 years ago things were good. Tirico and SVP were pretty good, but I agree that the current combination is the best. I don’t understand why putting SVP on at midnight is such a great move.
It seems like they are putting Adnan Virk with Russillo after SVP leaves. Virk has been filling in a bit over the last couple of years, he’s not funny. Danny Kanell isn’t funny either. Stanford Steve the current producer is funny and would have been my pick as the next co-host. Heck, even Outsider Mike understands what SVP and Russillo are doing better than Adnan or Kanell.
Anyway, I’m totally mystified by the other ESPN radio shows because I think the hosting talent is average at best and often sub-par:
Mike and Mike - this is just vanilla sports talk. Not horrible, not great. They get the A-list guests because of they have the largest audience due to broadcast time. So, because of the guests they are often worth hearing. The addition of Chris Carter wasn’t a positive. His catchphrases were funny exactly once and now he says them every damn day. C’mon, man!
Colin Cowherd - A contrarian that interviews himself for 3 hours. He’s more willing to say something controversial and original but at times he seems to be saying controversial things just for the controversy. It seems he has been delving into politics more and more and he quickly becomes tedious and boring.
SVP and Russillo - the crown jewel.
LeBatard - This is awful dreck, nothing is said here that wasn’t already worn out a thousand times at any sports bar in the country.
Sedano and Stink - Mark Schelereth can be funny and is great fun to listen to when talking about football. Otherwise they are both boring and predictable
Freddie Coleman - Holy shit this guy is bad. The only reason he is on is because apparently he has no life and doesn’t mind doing the 6 hour graveyard shifts. Never once heard a funny or original take from him.
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So, I’ll listen to Russillo to see what he does with the radio show. I agree that he definitely can sound like an asshole at times but I think he is saying things that a lot of journalists are afraid of saying because they don’t want to burn bridges with potential sources.
My man! We are almost of one mind on this whole deal.
Mike and Mike…both seem like nice guys but the show sucks IMO. Live, they overlap with DP and his show crushes theirs. We have a local guy on from 6-9 (inexplicably taking DP’s first hour) and he is better, IMO, than M&M.
Cowherd. I like half of what he says but he is sort of weird. I love it when SVP and Russillo make fun of him. He sort of reminds me of the First Take guys.
I don’t like LeBatard at all and while I am sure I have heard Freddie Coleman I could not id his face or voice. Same with Sedano. I do know stink but mostly from his TV work and guest spots on other shows. I very much enjoy his NFL insight. He seems like a good dude.
I agree with you Stanford Steve would be a better choice. Though I could see those two coming to blows about once a year. I don’t like Virk, when he guest hosts I fast forward a lot. I like Kanell better even though he is basically a troll when it comes to college football. Outsider Mike is good where he is at.
I’m a little shocked by this - nobody else I know likes the show very much. I may need new friends.
RE: Freddie Coleman - he’s on ESPN radio late at night - starting around 9 pm I think. Local affiliates probably substitute their own guy which would have to be an upgrade because he’s just horrendous.
Anyway, I can’t believe they are killing the show for some midnight deal for SVP. I’d really like to know the background on the whole thing because it sounds to me like a classic case of upper management getting too smart for themselves, and becoming a little too greedy.
Russillo works as a great foil, imo, because he is so cynical with a great dry sense of humor. I don’t know if that will work if he is out there by himself. So I worry that the whole thing will go away because it will implode without a co-host that has some chemistry with him. On the other hand, I’d rather listen to him solo than with either Virk or Kanell. So, maybe it will work.
I am sad that we won’t get one more football season out of them because I think that’s the best time of year.
I haven’t heard what Stanford Steve is doing (or Outsider Mike), have they said what their fates will be?
I don’t think their management likes them much and I think the feeling is mutual. They have made references to ratings and social media that make me think that.
SVP hosting what will basically be an ESPN competitor to the late night network talk shows will probably work, for ESPN, but I can’t see a show like that ever challenging the big 3 network late night talk shows.
Agree with you football is their best work but that could be because its my favorite sport. One thing I always loved about the show was that they did the least baseball of any national, or even local, show that I am familiar with. Curiously they seem to be doing more baseball of late than usual, though still maybe 5 segments out of 60 on a weekly basis.
Russillo has guest hosted for Olbermann three times now and done a great job IMO. I hate Olbermann because of his politics and over the top everything, so I never watch his show, and can’t say Russillo was better…but he was pretty good for his first solo gig on TV (that I know of). He does NBA Tonight also and I don’t think he works well in that format. He was occasionally on Grantland Basketball Hour and I thought he did well there.
I assume both Stanford Steve and Outsider Mike are staying with the radio side of whatever SVP & Russillo turns into. Outsider used to do work, and maybe still does, for other ESPN radio shows as well.
So the replacement Russillo Show is still pretty awesome IMO. Still my favorite radio show. It’s only been 2 weeks and its been all Danny Kanell as the co-host. Still might be some changes coming, AFAIK Russillo still does not have a new contract with ESPN and his current one expires at the end of September, I think.
I don’t mind Kanell and I suppose need to give him a little more time but just not a huge fan. I find that I know pretty much what he is going to stay because it’s standard radio sports anchor take or standard former NFL player take. Maybe with a little more time Kanell will open it up a bit more, I feel he’s still playing things a bit conservatively which is probably wise given that this is a new gig for him and I’m guessing would a be a big step up for his media career should he land it. I’m not saying I want him to say provocative things just to be provocative (e.g. Steve A Smith, Skip Bayless etc.).
I really wish they would give Stanford Steve a run.
RE: Russillo’s contact - didn’t know about September. That’s not very far away. They have to resign him don’t they? It’s not like the guys that come after them are great. They used to have Coachman on afterwards which was awful.
I think they really need to re-sign him. If you look at their schedule these days it may be rapidly losing some people. I hate Colin Cowherd, but he may be leaving soon as well–he’s been dropping hints of moving to LA to pursue something more in writing and actually “slipped out” that he may be teaming up with Bill Simmons (who apparently is talking to Netflix among other companies). He didn’t actually didn’t state he wouldn’t do the show any more, but I’m suspicious. Losing Cowherd would open up the slot between Mike & Mike and Russillo. The rest of the schedule is Le Betard, Sando, then Bomani Jones and Freddy Coleman (being on a long roadtrip I’ve gotten used to this schedule very fast).
I think there is a real possibility that Russillo goes wherever Simmons ends up as well. They had very good chemistry. Cowherd is such a clown, I don’t understand how he is so popular.
ESPN does not seem to get it. Radio show aside, Russillo is one of their best basketball guys and they relegate him to radio and random guest spots on TV. The fact that he was not on their NBA Draft TV coverage was a fucking joke. Adding insult to injury, the draft night radio coverage he was a part of was really not available anywhere. I went out of my way to find it, and could not. It was not on my local ESPN radio affiliate. ESPN Radio app did not have it and the ESPN and ESPN Radio websites had broken links that sent you to some other programming.
Wonder if they would give Michael Smith and Jemele Hill a regular radio show. They have become a pair with their daily His and Hers TV show, and it would add diversity to their radio lineup which is like all white guys now.
Meanwhile, Cowherd decides to go to FOX… as his parting gift, apparently made somewhat racist comments about Dominicans and today ESPN decided to cut him off permanently.
The flap stems from Cowherd’s comments on Thursday, which were made while debating whether it was difficult for a front-office executive to take over managerial duties – using current Miami Marlins general manager/manager Dan Jennings as an example.
“It’s baseball,” Cowherd said Thursday. "You don’t think a general manager can manage? Like it’s impossible? The game is too complex? I’ve never bought into that, ‘Baseball’s just too complex.’ Really? A third of the sport is from the Dominican Republic. The Dominican Republic has not been known in my lifetime as having world-class academic abilities. A lot of those kids come from rough backgrounds and have not had opportunities academically that other kids from other countries have.
“Baseball is like any sport. It’s mostly instincts. A sports writer who covers baseball could go up to Tony La Russa and have a real baseball argument, and Tony would listen and it would seem reasonable. There’s not a single NFL writer in the country who could diagram a play for Bill Belichick. You know, we get caught up in this whole ‘thinking-man’s game.’ Is it in the same family? Most people could do it. It’s not being a concert pianist. It’s in the same family.”
They ripped on him for the education comment regarding the Dominican Republic. The clip was reported and aired totally out of context and created a bit of a firestorm. Hes being called racist now. The documented failure of a country’s educational system on an academic level is not a racist topic, its political. Things are getting way too PC on ESPN. Its good to break down stereotypes and to prohibit the use of racist words on the air but its like everyone has to tip toe around what they say anymore because someone will find some way to use it against you if there is even the smallest hint of political incorrectness hidden in the words.
