Following the Labor Day holiday, WFAN morning show co-hosts Boomer Esiason and Gregg Giannotti made their return to the studio as the National Football League season is set to begin. Esiason and Giannotti have worked together on the Boomer & Gio program since January 2018, and the duo is now set to commence its seventh NFL season together. At the same time, both local baseball teams are in pennant races, and there is palpable excitement surrounding basketball and hockey in the coming months. While there are plenty of sports to discuss in the New York metropolitan area, the program started on a different note Tuesday to honor a significant milestone attained by one of its personnel.
Esiason is beginning his 18th year hosting morning drive on WFAN, rendering him the longest-tenured host at the station. Over the summer, he signed a contract extension with Audacy and WFAN that will keep him on the air alongside Giannotti while stepping back from The NFL Today pregame show on CBS. When Esiason first began working at the station alongside Craig Carton in 2007, Giannotti remembers that he was working with Joe Benigno and Evan Roberts. Esiason started the program by throwing his chair in the wall, presumably in disgust, since he had not been in the studio for some time and that it was presumably the wrong one.
“It’s amazing,” Esiason said. “For 10 days, I have not been aggravated once. I get here, and I’m immediately aggravated.”
Giannotti expressed his excitement to be back on the program as another NFL season prepares to begin. When asked about what it was like starting his 18th year, Esiason conveyed his gratitude for the role and how much he enjoys coming into work on a daily basis.
“It’s great,” Esiason said. “It’s one of the best jobs I could have ever asked for and lucky enough to be able to get, and unfortunately, it happened at somebody else’s expense, which was back in 2007, a weird, weird year, and here I am starting this 18th season, and it’s been a remarkable run to say the least, for a lot of reasons.”
Esiason articulated that he has worked with producer Al Dukes, anchor Jerry Recco and board operator Eddie Scozzare for most of his time at the station. Moreover, he stated that he has been paired with Giannotti for nearly half of those years and enjoyed success on the airwaves.
“People always say, ‘When do you think you’re going to [retire]?,’” Esiason averred. “I said the day that I feel like when I come here becomes work because if you love what you do, it is not work. It’s supposed to be enjoyable, it’s supposed to be humorous, it’s supposed to be entertaining, informational. You name it, we’ve been able to deliver it, and I’ve enjoyed every single moment of it, except for maybe about six months.”
After Giannotti expressed that the aforementioned six-month stretch was “topsy-turvy and crazy,” Esiason voiced that he wants to “avoid the empty abyss” of questioning what he is going to do. Instead, he voiced the opinion that if someone loves their job, they should keep that job, prefacing the statement by questioning what it was from which he would retire. Esiason and Giannotti’s program has had the longest run among current weekday programming within prime hours at the outlet.
“They say if you find something you love to do, you never work a day in your life,” Giannotti shared. “That’s what they say.”
“Somebody said it,” Esiason added. “I don’t know who they are.”
