Over his time at ESPN, Mike Greenberg has hosted a variety of different programming and read different advertisements and sponsorships. Whether it be Get Up on television in the morning or #Greeny thereafter on ESPN Radio, segments usually implement some kind of sponsored element part of the overall business proposition in sports media. Greenberg recently hosted ESPN’s coverage of the 2024 NFL Draft for the fourth consecutive year, which was presented by EGO, an outdoor power tools company owned by Chevron.
Throughout the broadcast, Greenberg reiterated the presenting sponsor for the broadcast and executed his responsibilities. EGO, however, happens to be a homonym and can, at times, have a negative connotation when referring to an individual. During a recent appearance on The Ryen Russillo Podcast, Greenberg was asked how he felt comfortable enough to continue saying that coverage was presented by EGO.
“Listen, I’ve been telling the world that I’m presented by something for a very long time,” Greenberg said. “I actually said this to somebody – everybody has their own claim to fame. I think it’s possible that I have read more sponsorships than any other person in the United States in the last 25 years. I think that’s a real possibility – four hours a day on Mike & Mike – now four hours a day when you combine the TV and the radio.”
Russillo concurred with this point, affirming that it likely was not close in that Greenberg has this distinction. From there, he recalled a story about filling in on Mike & Mike and being handed a stack of papers that the producers of the show referred to as the rundown. When Russillo discovered that all of the documents contained advertising reads, he was somewhat incredulous that it was considered to be the rundown for the show.
The producers explained that it was what Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic did during the show and would figure out the segments. Russillo remembers messing up an advertising read for 5-hour Energy by reading the phrase “No guardrails” that was listed on the paper. The program listened to the clip back several times off the air and laughed over the years as well; however, Russillo was coerced to apologize for it on the air.
“Whenever anyone would do the show when I wasn’t there, the running joke was always, ‘How was the other person?,’ [and it was], ‘He did the reads,’” Greenberg said. “If you did the reads, then nothing that terrible happened. At the end of the day, did someone say Progressive? Did we say it? Did we say it six times? If so, then yeah, sure, but did we talk about basketball? I don’t know, but we definitely got the reads in and that’s, at the end of the day, that’s the most important part of the job.”
With Greenberg’s years of hosting experience and aptitude in the space, Russillo was impressed with how he handled his job during the ESPN coverage of the NFL Draft. In fact, he made an observation while watching on television that he communicated to Greenberg before moving the conversation to the New York Knicks and the team’s run in the NBA Playoffs.
“I watched it and you brought everybody in,” Russillo said, “and I could just sense, I think in the way only people that are on the air can sense, you were like, ‘This is absurd that I’m saying I’m presented or we are presented by EGO,’ so you left a little pause in there for the companies, which I thought was brilliant because of how long you’ve been doing this.”
