ESPN "Wooing" Katie Nolan, Potentially For Mike Greenberg Show Per Report
By Ty Duffy
Katie Nolan’s future is up in the air. “Garbage Time” is not being renewed in its current form. FS1 has a late night time slot open. The Sporting News is reporting that ESPN is interested in Nolan and held an “exploratory meeting.”
"ESPN boss John Skipper, Connor Schell and producer Erik Rydhom have held an exploratory meeting with the Emmy-winning star of “Garbage Time,” according to sources."
The Sporting News also threw out a specific possibility: Nolan co-hosting a new morning show with Mike Greenberg.
"One possibility: pairing her with “Mike & Mike in the Morning” co-host Mike Greenberg for a national show that would create an All-Star morning show team — and mark the end of Greenberg’s on-air 17-year partnership with Mike Golic."
Obviously, just as with a sports leak, it’s important to consider who the “sources” were and why they would want this information in the marketplace. While it would be a big career jump for Nolan (to a daily show everyone is watching), this seems at least plausible.
ESPN announced a “Mike and Mike” move to New York in 2015 that was later aborted. SI reported in January that ESPN would feature Greenberg in a new morning TV program based in New York.
One would suspect potential co-hosts considered for Greenberg in such an endeavor would be younger, edgier, more opinionated, probably female, and able to move between sports and entertainment fluidly. It’s not a stretch that Nolan’s name would come up, though ESPN does have other options in house.