Over the last month, the HBO Sports and NFL Films series Hard Knocks has captured the interest of sports fans from around the country. Watching New York Jets star quarterback Aaron Rodgers mesh with his new teammates and build a championship culture has kept people glued to their television screens and the Jets entrenched in the football conversation.
There has, perhaps, been no radio program that has been more invested in Hard Knocks than Boomer & Gio on WFAN, devoting significant time on every episode the night after the new episode premieres to discuss what happened. With co-hosts Boomer Esiason and Gregg Giannotti both absent from the program on Wednesday, the conversation shifted to a different HBO series that the network has been heavily promoting just before the start of each edition of Hard Knocks.
“I think we both have an interest in it, and that’s the docuseries – this Winning Time,” WFAN anchor Jerry Recco said. “….To me, and I saw I guess it was three or four days ago, they were trying to market it better because it was a wild success; I think it was last year.”
The sports program tells the story of the Los Angeles Lakers’ championship dynasty of the 1980s featuring portrayals of Hall of Fame guard Magic Johnson, forward Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and head coach Jerry West among others. While there was some pushback about how the series depicted certain instances or players on the roster, it proved to be a success in its first season. The problem lies in that many people were not aware that the second season of the show premiered in early August and is ongoing, available to watch on HBO and stream on Max.
“The fact that I didn’t even know it was back – that’s a problem,” Recco said. “They didn’t do a good job with it.”
Throughout the segment, former WFAN host Joe Benigno, who was working with Recco and filling in, gave his opinions on parts of the second season including the coaching staff and team owner Jerry Buss. At the moment, Benigno is three episodes into the new season and is excited to continue watching the rest of it.
“Oh, it’s tremendous,” Benigno said. “Oh my gosh – I am so into it.”
As for Recco, he was able to complete the first season and was fascinated by the level of detail associated with the show. Specifically in watching the dynamic between Johnson and Abdul-Jabbar, along with the demeanor of West. Shortly after the premiere of the show, West’s legal team sent a letter to HBO demanding a retraction of his depiction and an apology from the network, claiming an inaccurate rendering of his true character.
