Mike Francesa Sure Appears to Be Returning to WFAN, And This Apparent Enemy Agenda Sounds Juicy
It’s been an interesting 24 hours in the saga of what Mike Francesa will do next after his retirement from WFAN, and right now all signs are pointing to …. a return to WFAN, at least in some capacity.
On Monday, Andrew Marchand of the New York Post reported that Francesa was “desperate” to return to New York radio, and that his camp had had talks with WOR, ESPN New York, and WFAN. For various reasons, the first two didn’t seem like a great fit.
This being out there prompted Francesa to give a doozy of a quote to Neil Best of Newsday. Francesa, who had a lengthy retirement tour in advance of his show’s long run ending this past December, said that it’s “time to return to WFAN” and made a direct reference to there being a “campaign” on the part of some to keep him out:
"“This is for those who started this campaign in recent days. I didn’t decide to go back to WFAN until I was told I better not go back. For those behind it, that was the moment I decided to return.”"
As SI’s Jimmy Traina noted, there is ZERO chance Francesa would say these things publicly if he were in any way uncertain that WFAN would have him back in some capacity. So giddy up.
But there remain pressing questions to be answered. Who is trying to keep him out? Boomer? Who else? How far does this conspiracy go? What else will Mike be working on? (My vote would be weekly spots on NFL Network’s Good Morning Football and MLB Network’s High Heat with his old partner Chris Russo.)
What role at WFAN will he have? (Despite the fact that Francesa’s replacement show with Chris Carlin, Bart Scott, and Maggie Gray lost the quarter to ESPN NY’s Michael Kay Show in the male 18-54 demographics, Best says he’d “bet heavily” against afternoon drive time.)
Time will definitely provide some of these answers. It sure would be fun for us to learn the identity of the Francesa enemies who tried to thwart his WFAN return.