Andrew Marchand of The New York Post reports that WFAN and ESPN New York had discussions about what it would take for the Entercom sports talk giant to bring Bart Scott back to their building. He was WFAN management’s first choice to partner with Craig Carton for a new afternoon show.
The former NFL linebacker left WFAN at the beginning of the year to join ESPN. He is know part of ESPN New York’s mid day show along with Alan Hahn. He also makes regular appearances on ESPN television programming.
The most surprising part of this story is that ESPN was willing to let WFAN talk to Scott. Marchand writes that ESPN New York boss Tim McCarthy “allowed the under-contract Scott to speak with FAN, not wanting to prevent what could be a potential upgrade for Scott’s career, even if it meant competing against his ESPN New York Michael Kay Show“.
Chris Olivero and Mark Chernoff had envisioned signing Scott and Carton for afternoon drive on WFAN. That would shift Evan Roberts back to middays where he would have been partnered with Maggie Gray.
Instead, Bart Scott and his agent leveraged WFAN’s interest into a more prominent role on ESPN for Scott. Just this week he was filling in for Jay Williams on ESPN Radio’s nationally syndicated Keyshawn, JWill and Zubin.
Marchand notes that just because a deal couldn’t be reached with Scott doesn’t mean there is a sense of defeat at WFAN. Bosses there are excited for what a Carton/Roberts pairing could sound like, noting that “sports-geekism” and “zaniness” could make a good match.
“There is also a feeling that Roberts might have more range that he couldn’t really show because of Benigno’s style,” he writes. “Roberts is a huge Howard Stern fan and started his career doing a SiriusXM Maxim show.”
