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Do you ever wonder what is talked about on sports radio while you’re sleeping? I started thinking about that this week as I was looking around for a show to check out. At the beginning of my career, I did morning radio for about 8 years and had that alarm clock set at 4:34 a.m. (yet another nod to my guy Charles Barkley!). I thought that was crazy, but then realize some people are on at even crazier times like overnights or like the show I eavesdropped in on this week, The Fellas with Anthony Gargano and Jason Fitz.
The Fellas is a once per week show on FOX Sports Radio that airs Saturday mornings from 5 a.m. to 9 a.m. ET, which has to be tough on the Friday night plans for the hosts. It also probably struggles a bit for audience on the west coast where it’s airing from 2 a.m. to 6 a.m. PT. However, it is national radio and both Gargano and Fitz are more than worthy of at least this time on the network.
Gargano is the former Philadelphia radio sports talk host who spent time at WIP before leaving for 97.5 The Fanatic in 2015. He spent eight years at The Fanatic and then left for All City’s PHLY which led to a lawsuit with Beasley Media Group. Gargano has been a part of the FOX Sports Radio lineup for more than 15 years
Before becoming a radio host, Gargano began his career as a writer for the Associated Press in Chicago, the New York Post and the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Jason Fitz joined FOX Sports Radio in the fall of 2023. Fitz also joined Yahoo Sports in 2023 to cover the NFL, fantasy football, and college football. He was previously at ESPN and served as co-host of Fitz & Harry on ESPN Radio but was part of the network’s layoffs midway through 2023. Fitz spent six years at ESPN, hosting several digital and streaming programs encompassing college sports, NFL, NBA and more. He also hosted SportsCenter on Snapchat, ESPN Radio’s First and Last and was a regular contributor to Golic and Wingo.
Prior to his career in sports media, Fitz was a Grammy Award-nominated musician, most notably serving as the musical director and fiddle player for the popular country music group The Band Perry.
It cannot be easy to have energy and be ready to go at 4 or 5 in the morning on a Saturday, but even as Gargano sounded a little bit under the weather, the two sounded not that much different than if they were doing it in the afternoon on a weekday. I don’t know if it was caffeine, adrenaline or both, but in listening to this Saturday’s episode neither had trouble getting going.
While the show would normally feature wall to wall football talk this time of year, especially college football on a Saturday morning, the show started off with a good baseball discussion which started about the World Series and then led in to how MLB compares to the NBA.
Fitz said what I think a lot of people who watched the World Series outside of the home markets were saying in that it was hard to take your eyes off it once you started watching, even if like him, you hadn’t watched many or any full nine inning games in recent years. Fitz said he was glued to it and that it is big moments that can connect you as a fan, and he said Freddie Freeman’s heroics did that for him.
Gargano added, “On a team of stars like Shohei and Mookie Betts – it was Freeman who stood out.”
Fitz continued talking about the ratings and how this series did well with younger viewers which has been difficult for anything on television these days. As for it being two teams at the way high end of the payroll spectrum, both hosts pointed out that hasn’t always worked in baseball and Fitz said, “Whatever the system allows, if you want to work that system to get your team and your city a championship, that’s well within the rules.”
Like most of you, I was asleep when the show was airing live, so I was listening to the podcast. I was fairly shocked at how quickly the two were able to get into a really strong sports discussion and it was funny because I don’t think Gargano was prepared for what happened either.
The two hosts started talking about where baseball is at in comparison to other sports and came to the conclusion baseball is in a good place, while the NBA has a lot of work to do and is headed in the wrong direction. They brought up the point that the leagues have to understand where football and the NFL are right now and that you aren’t going to overtake them so be happy with your position and work to strengthen it rather than thinking you can reach the heights of the NFL.
Fitz then made a very interesting comparison using his time in the music industry and saying there are two types of bands who play county fairs. The first type is the band on the way up and they are stoked about playing the fair. The other is the band on the way down who can’t believe they’re back to having to play fairs.
In this case, the MLB is the band on the way up and the NBA is the band on the way down. Fitz made the point to embrace wherever you are, rather than making something that used to be a huge positive a negative.
It was 5 o’clock in the morning where the hosts live, and this was a great point made by Fitz and Gargano acknowledged so as the point started to sink in. Fitz added, “All of these sports are wildly secondary [to the NFL]. [Baseball should] revel in the glory of what this is, the biggest stars went out and represented the hell out of the sport and that’s a beautiful thing. Let the NFL do what they do.”
Gargano, who follows the NBA and the Philadelphia 76ers on a daily basis said the NBA is “close to long-term decay.” Fitz added, “The NBA is a lot closer to becoming the NHL than it is the NFL.”
As the discussion continued, Gargano’s ‘Philly’ started to come out as he talked more about the league. “I hate this freakin league,” he exclaimed. “I love basketball. The NBA is…a meaningless 82 games.” He then went on a full rant about Joel Embiid who has been in the news at the beginning of the season for not playing. Embiid has been ripped by the Philadelphia media and held a press conference where he referred to “what he has done for the city.”
Gargano said Embiid, the NBA players and league have “no perspective” and that Embiid has to expect some criticism when he has “made $500 million dollars, to do your job.”
As seems to be the case a lot lately, much of the NBA discussion centered around load management and Gargano made the point that it takes away from the journey the regular season used to be about. Fitz added the NBA regular season is now background noise to him when it is on, and Gargano made the case for why all of it should be blamed on San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich who started the trend of resting players during the regular season, so they are more ready come playoff time.
In recognizing the NBA’s recent media contracts and the global success, Fitz said, “Rich does not mean good. The NBA is rich, that doesn’t mean it’s good.”
After that it was pretty much football city leading up to FOX Sports Radio’s Countdown to Kickoff show. The two hosts showed their expertise in football as they talked about the big college games and went through the NFL schedule thoroughly as they weighed in on all the news from the week in the league, reviewed the Thursday night game and the key matchups coming up.
Included in the football talk was a good reminder to college football fans about recognizing the polls and the rankings aren’t the same as what seeds the teams may get come playoff time. As the system is a very unique one, all sports talk hosts need to make sure they are up on how it all works so as not to be surprised down the road and Fitz gave a good explanation.
Gargano and Fitz know their sports. They are also sports talk radio veterans who understand the idea of playing the hits and mixing strong opinion with entertaining subjects. They go back and forth well and are a bit of a yin and yang as far as how they sound, with Gargano the rougher sounding Philadelphian who can rant with the best of them while Fitz has a smoother delivery and never got too high or too low while keeping the energy throughout.
Towards the end of the show, the lone guest was ‘The Brain’ who gave picks on college and pro football games which was a good way to lead up to the college football show. By the way, ‘Brain’ nailed the outright win for South Carolina over Texas A&M.
No matter the sport or even if they were talking trick or treating, days of holidays, daylights savings time or just giving out Gargano’s pasta sauce recipe, Gargano and Fitz had fun and informed and as was said many times, the show really is just “the fellas hanging out.”
As it turns out, there is really good sports talk going on, even while most of us are sleeping.
Dave Greene is the Chief Media Officer for Barrett Media. His background includes over 25 years in media and content creation. A former sports talk host and play-by-play broadcaster, Dave transitioned to station and sales management, co-founded and created a monthly sports publication and led an ownership group as the operating partner. He has managed stations and sales teams for Townsquare Media, Cumulus Media and Audacy. Upon leaving broadcast media he co-founded Podcast Heat, a sports and entertainment podcasting network specializing in pro wrestling nostalgia. To interact, find him on Twitter @mr_podcasting. You can also reach him by email at Dave@BarrettMedia.com.
