Sports have long been synonymous with the Chicago marketplace. The subliminal passion expressed by fans on a yearly basis for their favorite teams is conspicuous and felt throughout the city. When the Chicago Cubs snapped a 108-year drought to win the World Series in 2016, the team remained a talking point on radio in the days and weeks to come. In fact, the historic run is still frequently referenced within Chicago sports talk parlance.
While baseball is often associated with Chicago, it is the city’s football team – the Chicago Bears – that has gone the longest without winning a league championship. Even so, longtime Chicago sports radio host Mike Mulligan defines the city as a Bears town, emphasizing how sports media personalities frequently discuss the team because of the feedback they receive from the audience. Especially for shows that follow a Bears game, Mulligan makes sure to be ready to discuss the team at length, conduct interviews and interact with listeners to create a compelling and informative radio program.
“If there’s a Bears game, I want to be on the radio the next morning talking about it,” Mulligan said, who also hosts the pregame and postgame show on gamedays. “I think people expect that from you, and there’s only 17 of them a year so you try not to miss any Bear Mondays.”
Mulligan hosts the morning drive show on 670 The Score with David Haugh. The duo has experienced ratings success, yet the qualitative metrics feel somewhat arbitrary to him. He defines the success of his program beyond what the numbers dictate. Mulligan remains committed to serving as a trustworthy and entertaining conduit of news and opinion for Chicago sports fans, continuing to foster a meaningful connection with an audience over parts of the last five decades.
“I think that there is a generational love of sports in this town,” Mulligan said. “Chicago is a great sports town; sadly, it’s not reflected in the results of the teams, but people love these teams and they love the different players.”
Working in radio, however, was something that Mulligan did not envision in his formative years. As an English major at Loyola University, he got a job answering telephones in the sports department of the Chicago Sun-Times. After graduating college, he was promoted and began covering a wide array of sports for the newspaper. At just 26 years old, he began working as a beat writer for the Chicago Bulls, following the dynasty led by superstar guard Michael Jordan. Mulligan covered the end of the team’s first title and the following two championships while on the beat.
Eventually he transitioned from basketball to football, covering the Chicago Bears and then the NFL at large. Over his years as a print reporter, he had the chance to report on numerous big sporting events, becoming more prominent in the marketplace. That resulted in regular appearances on radio and television programs.
“It was really fun to sort of look at national stories from a local perspective, and it was really interesting to do shows where you’re talking about larger issues,” Mulligan said, “but all the time, I would be taking individual stuff from other teams. It sounds like I’m plagiarizing, but it’s not. It’s just the ideas people had about their team, I would apply them to our team because the Bears were always quarterback-challenged, so that was always the main issue and the main story.”
The radio show appearances began as a side hustle to accompany his career as a sportswriter, starting with One-on-One Sports. The outlet eventually became Sporting News Radio, and he began to work weekend shifts and perform as a fill-in host. Establishing his voice as a sports radio personality, however, differed from the way he expressed himself through the written word. Mulligan believes there was an evident dissonance to how he sounded on the air, which affected his connection with the listening audience.
“I had this identity thing where I thought I wanted to be a writer, and I wound up a sportswriter and I thought, ‘Yeah, that’s pretty good; that’s fine,’” Mulligan said. “I kind of viewed myself through that lens, and then I started doing radio.”
The way in which Mulligan learned how to operate as a talent came through trial-and-error. While on a sportswriting assignment, he encountered then-Chicago Bears coach Ron Rivera, who expressed that he had listened to him host his weekend show while driving with his wife. Rivera shared that he and his wife legitimately began to wonder if Mulligan was self-ruminating on the air rather than addressing the audience.
“I would raise a subject like, ‘Is the Bears offensive line good enough?,’ and then I would answer the question,” Mulligan said. “I was counter-programming baseball, and so I had tons of information on football, but I was literally talking to myself. They picked up on this as they were driving around, and apparently the two of them were laughing pretty hard over it.”
Rick Telander, a former colleague of Mulligan while at the Chicago Sun-Times, was working at 670 The Score as a weekday afternoon host. One day, he was co-hosting his program with Mulligan and Doug Buffone, when a conversation they had emitted a strong sense of conviviality. Unbeknownst to anyone at the station, Telander rashly announced that he was leaving, delivering an on-air resignation that created an opening. Station management decided tabbed Mulligan to partner with Chicago Sun-Times reporter Brian Hanley, a duo that ended up forging a successful partnership on the air initially in middays.
“We knew each other and were friendly, but we knew we had never worked together and we’d never been on the same beat,” Mulligan explained. “If there was a Bears game, we would send a bunch of people and Brian would often go. One of my jobs was to be a traffic cop and make sure one columnist is writing one thing; another columnist is writing something else; and that I’m going to write this.”
When Mulligan first started working with Hanley, they would participate in group outings to try to meet existing listeners and expand awareness about the show. Even though he was meeting many of them for the first time, he felt as if there had already been a preexisting connection because of the inherent nature of sports radio.
“When you meet people outside of the station, they know a lot about you because there’s no way of hiding who you really are when you’re on the air for as long as we are and as early as we are,” Mulligan said. “I think that your guard is down and you’re just kind of talking about your kid or you’re talking about your life.”
After moving to mornings in 2008, Mulligan decided to transition to working in radio full time. His show with Hanley lasted 13 years before The Score chose not to renew Hanley’s contract. The decision came shortly after Jimmy de Castro took over as the senior vice president and market manager of Audacy Chicago. Under de Castro, Mulligan expressed that there was an ostensible hierarchy within the fabric of the station, something that has been evened out since Mitch Rosen took over as vice president of the outlet as part of a larger managerial role with Audacy.
“I think everybody feels a sense of ownership about every daypart, and I think it’s a really good thing and I think everybody is getting along really well,” Mulligan said. “Not that I wasn’t getting along with people previously, but I think that there was this sort of inequity among who was making what and how the place was put together. As a result, you were trying to run some guest towards a particular show to keep a particular host happy.”
Since then, Mulligan has been paired with Haugh in morning drive and tries to bring an upbeat, buoyant attitude to the program. One of Haugh’s strengths is his diction, something he has been able to translate from newspaper reporting to radio hosting. He is also open to debating, acknowledging the other position and positing a counterargument.
“When David and I have a disagreement about some element of football – and usually we agree – it’s because we’ve done this for a long time and you know what the truths are,” Mulligan said. “I always tell people, ‘You’re looking at this team and you’re seeing this or that; they’re seeing the same thing. They might not want to talk about it, and they might have different reasons why they’re acting differently, but you probably know the flaws of the team you watch on a weekly basis.’”
Even though Mulligan and Haugh have contrasting backgrounds, they have similar sensibilities. They were friends before they started working together and have found a way to work in their proclivities as newspaper reporters into the fabric of the show. Once per week, the show airs a segment called “Pick Six,” in which the two hosts examine six questions related to the sports teams in the Chicago area.
“We will literally pick apart any element of the story as you would if you were writing a column [or] as you would if you were covering a beat,” Mulligan said. “It’s just more of a newspaper training background to present the information.”
Aside from building chemistry with one another on the air, Mulligan recognizes the importance of having a strong producer who can enhance the program. Dustin Rhoades is the executive producer of Mully & Haugh, someone he previously worked with at Sporting News Radio and regarded as being good at his job. Moreover, Brandon Fryer works behind the scenes and works at “breakneck pace,” according to Mulligan, always ready to play an appropriate drop when necessary. Together, the team contains both synergy and an understanding of the difficulties associated with creating great morning radio.
“I used to be a night person, and then I started doing morning radio,” Mulligan said. “If you don’t love what you’re doing, it’s really difficult to make that commute. To get up and to get out of bed and jump in the shower and get to work, you’ve got to have a sense of commitment and dedication if you’re going to succeed.”
Under Rosen’s leadership and the work ethic of hosts, producers and other staff members, 670 The Score consistently finishes at or near the top of the Chicago radio ratings. Part of what makes the station strong, as explained by Mulligan, is the longevity and credibility within the building, in addition to remaining genuine and willing to criticize when necessary.
“I’ve been in the locker room and I know what it’s like to write a hard story and then go in there and have people want to give you the business,” Mulligan said. “That has happened plenty of times. I just feel like you can be honest and fair and probably very critical without being personal, and I’ve never gone in that direction.”
Mulligan says much of his career has been accidental since he didn’t follow a conventional blueprint for success. Consistent throughout is his ability to communicate with others, but also have interests that span beyond sports. Mulligan enjoys reading, playing chess and traveling around the world. He is focused on making sure The Score, and his morning show with Haugh, maintains its current standing, never taking his role for granted and staying prepared to celebrate the next Chicago sports triumph.
“I think that I’m very lucky to make a living in this business, and I really appreciate that every time I go to work,” Mulligan said. “If I wasn’t working, I would be doing the same stuff.”
