This floors me. Let me check that I’m reading you correctly. If it were up to you – you’d prefer Kanell over SVP on the radio show?
Don’t get me wrong, I like Danny and agree that firing him is a mistake and think it’s very unlikely that they’ll find someone better. But, I really really liked SVP in that spot with Russillo.
I think the show is better with Russillo driving. SVP drove when it was SVP and Russillo and I think Russillo deferred to SVP and it showed. I was not a big Kanell guy when he replaced SVP. And I thought the show was going to suffer. But, IMO, the show got better. Again, not because Kanell is better than SVP, but because the show was more Russillo. I think SVP is great and I like his Sportscenter, I tape it and watch most of them. But Russillo is better than SVP at radio.
At the heart of the show you had Danny who was in sports, so could talk back about sports and provide a very different perspective than Ryen usually advocated (usually DK was pro-athlete in a number of ways). But interestingly DK knew a lot of basketball and could hold his own in conversations about it with Ryen, so I felt that was a good dynamic. Overall, yeah I liked it. Now it seems like Ryen will just be on the radio, probably with Adnan as co-pilot. Maybe they’ll still have him do NBA draft stuff.
Kannell did not seem pleased he was being let go, judging by the nature of his tweet. I saw Ryen wasn’t on the show at all this week so he might be out or something (I don’t know). I also just randomly read about Ryen’s long-term beef with the WEEI guy (well, more like the WEEI guy’s beef with him), which is kinda nuts. I want to say this was alluded to on the show, but I could be mistaken (or thinking it was actually something he said about an older ESPN staffer who was no longer with the company, though didn’t name names). I can easily seem him riling certain personality types for sure.
— Alan
I think Russillo was on scheduled vacation from the show this week. I don’t think it had anything to do with the layoffs, but that is just speculation on my part. He is supposed to be back Monday and it will be interesting to see what he has to say about all of this.
I wish we had science talk radio that had the same kind of variety, frequency, and options of sports talk shows. Like FM channels too. Sorry, was just thinking that as I read this thread and realized I had no idea who any of these people are except Dan Patrick, and was thinking how much I’d like tuning into a nightly Neil deGrasse Tyson radio show.
I never thought of it that way before, but you’re right.
Well, Rusillo will be back on tomorrow and he’s said in his twitter feed that he’s going to spend a little time discussing all of this. Will be interesting because I’m sure ESPN management prefers that he say nothing at all about it.
It is easy to argue on radio about how good/bad a player is. And sports radio will make an argument like that last for days. Imagine a science radio show arguing the merits of gravity or who was better, Einstein or Newton?
Bomani Jones (who follows Rusillo here) avoided the topic last week except to note that his being gone Thurday and Friday was because of the draft coverage and not because he was being released.
Rusillo’s honesty yesterday was pretty interesting. Basically he said he was out all last week because he was in LA… looking for a house… because he thought he was going to be let go. He was pumped that he wasn’t, but really bummed out that DK got let go. And they are still trying to figure out where the show is going and that he is still under contract until next year. Also that the additional talk of him having a “reduced” role was apparently BS spread by an ex-agent/agency that continues to troll him.
— Alan
I was a little surprised to hear Russillo be quite so honest. He prefaced the beginning of his show by saying that he knew management wouldn’t be thrilled with talking about DK and the layoffs, and then he did it anyway. Admirable but I suspect that might bite him in the ass.
On the other hand he said he is under contract until next year (I think he said next summer). Which might just be stating a fact or just forecasting that he’s already decided that he’s done.
He’s indicated a few times that he’s been interested in California. I don’t think he has a serious girlfriend and being a 40 year old single guy in West Hartford, Connecticut might be a little limiting. He’s not that far from NY or Boston where there would be a bigger dating pool. But I’m guessing that he’s already done the date someone that lives a couple hours away thing, likely more than once at his age, and is sick of it.
Hasn’t been a word who his replacement will be. SVP’s departure was planned and it still took some time for them to settle on DK for a replacement. I’m kinda hoping that it will take a long time to name a replacement and that Russillo even does some more solo shows. He did those back in the day with SVP occasionally – it would just be basically him and Stanford Steve and I really enjoyed those.
I hope the replacement is not Adnan. I’d like him to stay solo. If he has to get a partner, of the people that have guest hosted I guess I like Will Cain the best.
ESPN effectively fired many people who still had years on their contracts. They were either payed off or told they could not work elsewhere while the contract was still in force.
Rusillo is from the Boston area (family and friends) but his brother works in LA.
Currently he is a bridge between Mike and Mike and Bomani Jones.
I would periodically watch SVP/Rusillo (as well as Mike & Mike), but the DP show is my sports staple. Probably because it doesn’t get infected with the ESPN rundown memes of what they need to talk about in order to hype them like so many other ESPN shows. Inside College Football has been my go-to show for CFB too (which amazingly enough has less SEC slurpage than ESPN’s College Football weekday shows - despite having a larger network contract with the SEC). The Tim Brando show was my previous staple, as it just had far more college content, but when CBS canned him a couple of years back, I didn’t check to see if FS1 ever came up with one.
He hasn’t been on ESPN for years. He hypes for NBC now. :)
But it definitely doesn’t feel as much like I’m being clubbed to death with it ;)
Uh oh.
Ryen got into too much of the sauce …
Ugh, man I just read about this. I hope he does not get fired.
How do you not get fired after something like that?
Obviously a bad look.
But is it as bad as driving under the influence? I’m sure there has been some ESPN talent that has had similar transgressions and didn’t get fired. Everything doesn’t have to be a fireable offense, imo.
At least no one was hurt and he wasn’t behind the wheel of the car. He was charged with basically trespassing and not public intoxication might be a silver lining there.
There may be more to the story as well. The condo was unlocked? Seems weird to me because I’d guess that Russillo was staying at some type of condo/resort situation.
Err, one hopes anyway there is more to the story. 42 years old is a little old to be crushing it like that. And if he was planning on really going on a tear, I would wager he picked Wyoming/MT on purpose – chances of him getting recognized have to be close to zero, until of course the Sheriff IDs him and the whole world finds out.
It’s basically public intoxication and trespassing but probably a suspendible offense, not fire-able. And actually Ryen appears to be the kind of guy to totally do something like that. He enjoys a good party, as his times in college football weekends and some of his other incidents kind of come about (his major beef with one of the radio personalities from Boston I believe is one instance).
— Alan