Fresh off months of speculating who might be the new programming boss at WFAN, a new search is underway, this time the replacement is needed for John Sterling, who retired this week as the New York Yankees play-by-play voice. While the person would work for the radio station, the team will have plenty to say about who gets the job. Gregg Giannotti and Boomer Esiason talked about some candidates during Boomer & Gio today on WFAN, including national broadcasters such as Brendan Burke and Ryan Ruocco.
In speaking about what has been written recently in the New York Post and The Athletic, Giannotti said, “…There’s four candidates that they have listed for John Sterling’s replacement. And we know that Justin Shackil and Emmanuel Berbari are two that are doing games right now and they are going to fill in for the rest of the year.
“They also mentioned…Brendan Burke the TV voice of the Islanders, who also does national hockey games for TNT, and they also have Ryan Ruocco on there who fills in on YES from time to time and also works for ESPN doing NBA games. Now, those last two guys are interesting because they would step right in, it would be bigger names, they are seasoned and they are really good.”
Giannotti discussed talking with Brendan Burke and said, “And I know that that was his dream because I had spoken to him about how he grew up at Yankees stadium because his father was a Yankees beat reporter and he used to work in the booth when he was a kid and he dreamt of doing that. But he has now gotten to a place on national TV in hockey and has a fulltime TV job, would he leave that or at least do both?…If I’m the person who is hiring these people and Breandan Burke tells me he wants to do this, then you got it, because he’s as good as anyone in the business right now.”
Ruocco also has a similar situation in that the 37-year-old has risen to be ESPN’s No. 2 NBA announcer in addition to his work in college basketball and with the Brooklyn Nets.
Boomer Esiason mentions there are other factors in all of this including finances and analyst Suzyn Waldman. “The thing that has already been proven is that Justin and Emmanuel both can work with Suzyn if she wants to remain. They are probably the cheaper options for the company…I don’t want to take anything away from those guys. I am sure their seat is burning wondering what’s going on. I would just say to both of them, they have an enormous opportunity here, to really show everybody, including the Yankess…and the question is who do they want in the radio booth? They might like Justin, they might like Emmanuel, because they work well with Suzyn, if Suzyn wants to stay.”
Giannotti says he thinks Shackil, 36, will have the upper hand and wondered how far he might be willing to go to get the fulltime job. “So basically, you’ve got Justin Shackil and Emmanuel Berbari doing the rest of the season, they’re going to be in there, Justin’s going to get more games. This opportunity there for him is humongous because he’s doing the games… Does he really go for it, to the point where maybe he goes outside of his comfort zone to try and get more attention, or does he just stay sort of the pretty standard flat-lining guy that he’s been?”
Esiason gave his advice to both of the younger broadcasters (Berbari is 24) saying, “Here’s my advice. My advice is to be yourself. Less is more…They’re fine, they are both fine, they sound similar a little bit, because they’re younger.”
