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Photo Credit: FanDuel Sports Network
Mike Golic Sr. and Mike Golic Jr. are set to debut The Golics on ESPN Radio on Aug. 3, six years after the network parted ways with Golic Sr. and four years after Golic Jr. left to join him full-time. The new show airs weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET and was announced in June as part of a multi-year agreement, simulcasting on the ESPN App and available on podcast platforms after each live broadcast.
Ahead of the debut, Golic Jr. joined The Athletic’s Audible podcast and said the return has felt easy for him personally, crediting the number of familiar faces still around the building. It’s also, by Golic Jr.’s own account, only half the story, and the half that belongs to him.
“Obviously, the first time around was a little more complicated, leaving with dad, and coming back was always going to entail more for him than it would for me,” Golic Jr. said. “I’m trying to give myself a chance to last as long in this industry as he and so many people I grew up listening to and watching have, but he’s got a legacy there already. He’s left an indelible mark on sports radio, sports media, and so I knew that impact was going to be big, but I think he was really excited and invigorated about the opportunity, and about the chance to go back to something that feels familiar and something that he knows so well with a lot of people that we trust and still care about.”
Golic Sr. spent 25 years at ESPN, first alongside Mike Greenberg on Mike & Mike, then with Trey Wingo and his son on Golic and Wingo, before that show ended in 2020. After the split, the father-son duo launched Golic & Golic on DraftKings in 2023. When DraftKings opted not to renew, they moved to FanDuel Sports Network for what turned out to be a 10-month run that ended when FanDuel TV announced a 20-month wind-down, eliminating roughly 100 jobs.
It was the third stop in three years for a partnership that ESPN had essentially discarded, and now, improbably, ESPN — the network that once told Golic Sr.’s agent it had no interest in bringing him back even at reduced pay — is the fourth. But none of that seems to have hardened into resentment, according to Golic Jr., who traced the smoothness of the return to his father’s refusal to let anything fester.
“I think the good news with my dad is he’s never been a grudges, drama [guy], because he doesn’t hold things back,” the younger Golic said. “He’s an old school, face-to-face guy. If he has a problem with someone, he’s going to address it straight up, then and now, and not let it linger. There weren’t really a lot of bad feelings that had to be parsed through going back here. There wasn’t a lot of that because I think he’s always handled his business the right way. I think he’s always prided himself on doing that. It’s allowed these conversations going back to be really fun. It’s allowed it to be energizing and hopeful and, like you said, the chance to do it together.”
However messy the exit looked from the outside, Golic Jr. framed the road back in as almost anticlimactic by comparison.
The show also marks a change in Golic Jr.’s own role. He described his part on Golic and Wingo as a third chair brought in to poke and prod rather than co-anchor with Golic and Wingo. This time, his name is next to his father’s on the marquee.
“As a 37-year-old who’s been handed two hours a day I get to spend with my dad at a time where life gets busy and everyone naturally grows and expands as families,” he said, “I think it’s more powerful than I recognized.”
Golic, Jr., still has plenty going on himself, as he has a prominent role as TNT Sports’ lead game analyst for Big 12 football and hosts a podcast with Jessica Smetana, The Echoes: A Podcast On Notre Dame. He’s also become a leader in the insane fast-food/junk-food influencer space.
The Golics take over the 10 a.m.-to-noon slot Clinton Yates vacated in March, when ESPN ended his Clinton & Friends show. Matt Jones and Myron Medcalf had been in consideration for the opening before the Golics deal came together, and their show, Matt & Myron, moves from its weekend slot to weekday afternoons instead.
The post Mike Golic Jr. says ESPN return carries more weight for his father: ‘A little more complicated’ appeared first on Awful Announcing.
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