Mike Ricordati is a radio host at 97.1 The Fan in Columbus. He’s a smart dude. Mike can make intelligent observations about a game or team in his sleep. But what separates Mike from other hosts is his ability to make the audience feel.
Why do we love music and movies so much? Because they make us feel. Whether we hear a song that makes us feel happy or watch a movie that makes us scared, we are going to feel something. That’s why we go back time and time again. People in Ohio have been going back to Mike for over two decades.
Mike speaks openly about his depression. He also gets people to barrel laugh. True connections aren’t built on X’s and O’s alone, they’re built on feelings.
Although 97.1 The Fan has been a very successful station, it was nearly sold last week. Mike talks about the aftermath and current state of uncertainty after Standard General nearly bought the station and other TEGNA assets. Mike also talks about hosting shows when he’s feeling down, having zero desire to leave Columbus, and switching from himself to Common Man on the air. Enjoy!
Brian Noe: What does it mean to you to sign an extension with The Fan [through 2026] considering it’s not a typical run-of-the-mill extension with the station possibly getting sold?
Mike Ricordati: No, it was a tough decision. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. For the first time in a long time, I thought that I was going to probably try something else.
The good news is that I’ve been doing this a long time. I have a following and a reputation, so there was interest. There was interest in me thinking about doing my own thing. But ultimately, with all the change around the radio station, I felt I owed it to the listeners. I felt I owed it to the staff to come back and see if we can sort of sturdy the ship a little bit.
It was tough because this has been 20 years of my life. It’s not just me that makes that decision. I talked to my wife about stuff. She said, do whatever you have to do, it doesn’t matter. I have to think about other people, not just myself, and how my decisions impact other people. That was a big part of it, trying not to let my family down, my co-workers down. I felt a lot of responsibility with that.
BN: You mentioned that one of the reasons you returned to The Fan was that you felt guilty about leaving. I understand it, but if you put that into more words, what was that feeling like for you?
MR: I wrestled with it because when it comes to listeners — and we have people who listen around the country now with streaming — I’ve always said you can always make more money, but you can’t get more time, and people give me their time every single day. There’s a sense of obligation that comes with that. I feel like I owe them something. I feel like I owe my co-workers something too.
The general manager is going to go out the door for another opportunity. The company is in flux because of a sale that’s pending. I would feel like if I walked out the door, I would let all those people who listened to me down, and I’d let all those people who count on me in that building down. As a younger guy in this business, I always looked at the veterans for stability because as a younger guy, you’re sort of uncertain about things. Now I am that veteran and I want to provide that stability. There’s obligation that comes with that.
BN: The company was nearly sold but the deal fell through at the last minute. What do you think about the way things stand right now?
MR: I don’t know what to make of it. It was just last week when this thing officially died, but it’s been almost a two-year process. Even leading up to this, we were a locally-owned company. It owned the local newspaper, a television station and us. We went from that to this publicly-traded television company that owned no other radio stations. We were thrown in with the TV station locally. They bought us as well.
We are sort of the unknown entity in that company. And then that company is for sale, this public company is going to go private, and that’s subject to all sort of government review. And at the end of the day, it doesn’t go through.
Now, what do they do with us? They may keep us and we hold hands and sing Kumbaya, or they spin us off to a radio company. I have no idea. There’s still that level of uncertainty there, even though it looks like this sale is completely dead at this point.
BN: You’ve been at The Fan since ’03. How would you describe the run that you’ve had for two decades at the same place, same town, same everything?
MR: It’s been interesting. I thought I would be here for a couple years and then move on, and 20 years later I’m still here. I’m not going anywhere at this point. I had flirted with the idea, I had other radio stations contact me from other markets and I said, thank you I’m very flattered, but I’m not moving at this point. They said, “well, we’ll build you a studio in your house. You don’t have to leave.” I said, yeah, but I wouldn’t feel right doing local radio if I’m not in that local market. This is my home. I embrace this place.
When I first started we were on the AM dial. We were holding celebrations if we got a two share. Even during football season we’d look at those two shares and say, oh, we’ve made it. Now we’re on the FM dial and last ratings period I had a 25 share. We’ve just sort of expanded on everything. When I first started here, we were exclusive to men in their 40s and 50s, and now we’ve expanded to where our female listenership is very high. Our minority listenership is very high.
We have utilized the biggest university in the country right down the street. We’re getting these 18 and 19-year-olds to listen to us. Then when they graduate, get a job and stay in this city, they continue to listen to us. Now I’m that guy, where I’ve got 25-year-olds coming up to me saying, I grew up listening to you, which is weird, but it’s flattering. It’s strange, it almost feels like it’s not 20 years, but it almost feels like it’s been forever too. I can’t really remember what it was like before I was here.
BN: What are a few of the things that you do by design to try to get the younger listeners to be a part of your show?
MR: Really, what I think it is, it’s just open, it’s honesty, it’s letting them know that you’re a real person, letting them know that not everything is perfect. When I first started, it was never let them see you sweat, never admit your mistakes, none of that. If you have a flub up, you just keep going.
I never understood that because the people that I grew up listening to on the radio, the ones that I wanted to emulate, it wasn’t because they were polished and perfect. It was because I found them interesting as people. That’s what I’ve always decided to do.
Anybody can sit down on the Monday after a big football game and get numbers and break stuff down, but how do you get people on a random Wednesday when there’s nothing going on? If there’s no game going on, they got to tune in to hear you. I think that’s what we’ve transitioned to over the years, it’s personality-based radio. I’ve gotten this far with selling my personality. I think yesterday we did maybe 25% sports talk in a three-hour show. The rest of it was just screwing around. We talked about serial killers for 25 minutes yesterday. A lot of program directors around the country would say that’s terrible, that’s death, you’re going to lose your audience, but what I’ve seen is that it’s the complete opposite.
You gain so many other people from different walks of life. We have so many female listeners because they’ll say “My husband had you on or my boyfriend had you on in the car, and I hate sports radio, but I was laughing the entire time. Now I listen all the time and I need sports.”
That’s sort of the brand that we want to sell. We’re not selling the sports radio aspect of it, although that is part of what we do. We’re selling the Common Man and T-Bone aspect of it. Nobody gets in their car and says I want to listen to sports radio, they say I want to listen to Common Man & T-Bone. And that’s the important thing.
BN: I saw a picture of you wearing a t-shirt that says I support children’s mental health. I’m curious about how passionate you are about that cause, and just your whole stance as far as that subject goes.
MR: I care a lot. I’m very open and honest about the fact that I’ve suffered with depression for most of my life. I talk about that, and of all the feedback that I get, probably 75% of it is because of that; people saying, “I listen to you, I struggle with that stuff, thank you for being a voice for me.”
It’s not like I’m going on the air every single day and I’m saying, “Hey, seek help!” I don’t do that. But if I’m having a bad day, I’ll tell you that I’m having a bad day. If I’m having a weird moment, I’ll tell you that I’m having a weird moment and I’ll let you inside my head.
I know as a kid, young adult, when I heard other people were struggling with similar things, it made me feel better because the feeling of isolation is the worst feeling in the world. I try and provide that light, I guess, for other people that are struggling. I think that it’s important to learn about these things and not dismiss them when you’re a kid because that’s when most of this stuff starts. Even if kids don’t understand exactly why they feel the way that they do. Even if it’s just, well, my kid just is very emotional. It’s like, yes, very emotional, that’s good. But does that child need support to deal with those emotions, because that child is going to grow up, life is going to kick him in the face a little bit, and then maybe that emotion grows into something that’s not as healthy.
I think it’s important to sort of break down the stigma because especially in sports radio, you’re dealing with a lot of alpha males and a lot of dudes that say, “I’m not going to talk to anybody about stuff. That’s a sign of weakness. There’s nothing wrong with me because I don’t have a fever. I can’t put a bandage on it.” But the reality is we need help in those areas. If I can be someone who is, “oh, well, if he’s talking about it, if he’s doing it, it must be okay,” then I’m going to do that every day.
BN: What’s it like doing shows when you might feel gray or black, and you’re supposed to be this colorful, engaging host?
MR: It’s playing that character. I’ve always sort of said, when I hit that microphone, the character comes out. That’s Common Man that talks to you for three hours; Mike is much more boring and reserved. I try and get in that mood before the show and when I walk in that studio, I’m kind of a different guy. The way I look at it too is that I’m going to have moments where I do let things get the best of me.
I treat every segment like its own show. If I have a bad segment, I don’t say, well, the show is lost. I say, well, that segment sucked and that segment is over; let me see what I can do better next segment. If I let things bog me down for three hours, man, that’s a dark place. It’s a dark hole that you dig yourself into. If you just say, well, that was a crappy five minutes, or 15 minutes, now let’s get on to something else. I think that’s a better outlook to have.
BN: When you look back on your career, are you satisfied with what you’ve done so far?
MR: Yeah, I think so. I’m always my own toughest critic. My co-host, T-Bone [John Smith], always makes fun of me and says that I hate everything that I do. I’m my own worst critic, and that’s true. There’s always a little David Letterman aspect of me, where I can’t really enjoy things that other people think are good. But I look back and I must be doing something, man, because I don’t know a lot of other people that have been at the same job for 20 years, and sign multi-year extensions, and pretty much can just walk into the office and say, I could write my own ticket at this point. They knew that I had the leverage, they respected that. It’s a good feeling to have that leverage, I must have done something right in my career.
I do sort of look back on how I started things out and I thought, well, when I first start I want to do rock radio in the morning. I did, and I didn’t really like it. I thought I wanted to move out West and work in California. I did, and I didn’t really like it. I thought I wanted to do national radio. I tried it. I did some ESPN Radio weekend stuff and fill-in stuff, and I didn’t really like it. You have these ideas of what you want to be when you start, and as you move on, you realize that, no, that’s the idea that I had in my head of what I thought success was. But really, being in one market for 20 years and having people come up to you saying, I grew up listening to you, and you’re the reason why I want to do whatever I’m doing, that’s a pretty special thing.
Brian Noe is a columnist for BSM and an on-air host heard nationwide on FOX Sports Radio’s Countdown To Kickoff. Previous roles include stops in Portland, OR, Albany, NY and Fresno, CA. You can follow him on Twitter @TheNoeShow or email him at bnoe@premierenetworks.com.
