Mike Francesa and Chris “Mad Dog” Russo weren’t exactly best friends when their run as a duo on WFAN began, Francesa said this week on his BetRivers podcast.
Francesa and Russo became godfathers of sports talk radio over the course of their 20-year run together. But Mike explained that initially the two really didn’t want to work together.
“We had a very rough start. It was exceedingly rough,” Francesa said on The Mike Francesa Podcast. “I don’t think people understand how rough it was. It was really bad. It was not pretty.”
But the tune of both hosts changed quickly after the ratings had Mike and the Mad Dog at number one and by a large margin.
“I thought that was the moment where it kind of went in the right direction,” Francesa said. “And I personally saw a light at the end of the tunnel.”
“We did not stop fighting it completely until we saw the ratings,” he added. “Because then we knew we were wasting our breath. The ratings turnaround was so enormous and everyone was so over the moon and it wasn’t a couple of months.”
Knowing that the two were quickly becoming the industry’s top show, Francesa knew he and Russo would be together for the long haul.
“There wasn’t anything to discuss,” he said. “We were together, we were going to be together, there was just no way around it.”
“Everyone who said it wouldn’t work just had to just shut up,” Francesa added.
