Brandon Tierney nearly worked in Philadelphia after a stint hosting in New York City. After nine years hosting in his home market at what was then ESPN New York 1050 AM, Tierney decided it was time to move on. Growing up in the shadow of the skyscrapers, Tierney was drawn to the sound of WFAN, hence why he was alarmed when he perceived an implicit sense of suppression during his time with the “Worldwide Leader.”
After receiving another job offer to host afternoons on the new 95.7 The Game in San Francisco, Tierney suddenly had a decision to make. It took him years of hard work and persistence to get to this position in the industry. His tenacity can be, in a way, traced back down the Jersey Turnpike.
One scene from the 1982 film Rocky III presents Rocky Balboa in a restroom looking into a mirror to determine if he would be able to defeat Clubber Lang in a decisive rematch. While he is not boxing, Tierney, before select programs, engages in a similar practice. He hopes to see an image possessed by the drive and hunger necessary to succeed in an extremely competitive industry.
Now, as he embarks on a new chapter of his career, hosting middays with Sal Licata on WFAN in New York City, how Tierney sees that reflection is significant. On a daily basis, he hopes to see remnants of how he felt in formative days in a bevy of local markets trying to find a niche and an audience to accept his voice.
“I can honestly say that I see that image,” Tierney said. “Not every show is great; not every moment’s great, but the drive to be great is actually stronger.”
Tierney was infatuated with the sound of WFAN from the time the station took the air in July 1987. Two years later, Mike and the Mad Dog launched in afternoons and captured scores of attention from sports fans and media consumers. The show became a template for successful sports talk radio – presenting opinions and engaging in informative and entertaining banter. Tierney was doing this with friends in the streets as a young sports fan, often comparing first basemen Don Mattingly and Keith Hernandez. Yet before he fully committed to radio, Tierney pursued a professional baseball career and played through college.
At Marist College, the task of balancing his journalism studies with a 50-game regular season schedule was a considerable challenge. By the time he exited college, Tierney had crafted a stellar collegiate baseball career, albeit marred by injuries, but had no practical experience in media. The fact that he is hosting sports talk radio at WFAN may seem surreal to the average aspiring professional, but for Tierney, it is the effect of shrewd decision-making and a will to go the extra mile to ascend upwards in the industry.
When Tierney caught wind of a job fair taking place at a New Jersey Nets game, he made it a point to attend. Plenty of businesses were there, but the WFAN table stood out. In fact, it had the longest line at the entire event.
When Tierney finally reached the table, he spoke to Brian Bruder, the head of the promotions department, and presented his exuberant persona. Unfortunately for Tierney, the station did not offer post-graduate internships. After Tierney begged for a way through the door, Bruder asked for his number and said he would be in touch.
The very next day, Tierney was invited to come to the WFAN studios in Astoria, Queens to meet the station’s promotions and managerial staff – a chance to pursue his dream.
Although he had no desire to work in promotions, Tierney happily took a job in the department and aimed to stand out. When he had some free time, he and another promotions department intern would enter an auxiliary studio and host their very own mock radio show.
Nearly three decades later, Tierney was afforded just that, but there were many stops along the way that crafted his hosting style. Tierney’s first job in professional radio came in Allentown, PA where he made $16,000 a year hosting morning drive programming and working as the promotions director. When local football was being played, he would broadcast the games for an extra $50.
“I was immersed it in it and I was getting some reps and I was figuring out, ‘How do I transfer my real personality and present it on the air in an effective manner?,’” Tierney said. “And obviously, there’s a lot of bumps and bruises along the way.”
Nine months later, the station flipped its format to salsa music, and suddenly, Tierney was out of a job. A similar occurrence happened in Las Vegas with the now-defunct national network, Sports Fan Radio Network. Tierney had the chance to work alongside superstars in the business, such as Jim Rome, and figured out how to compile an effective show. A year-and-a-half later, the station signed off the air for good, but it granted him the tools necessary to host a national show.
Before Tierney worked with Tiki Barber on WFAN, the duo hosted a simulcast national program on CBS Sports Radio. CBS Sports Radio operates out of the same building as WFAN, and by this point, Tierney’s dream destination was well within his proximity both literally and figuratively. After all, he had returned from a stint with 95.7 The Game in San Francisco where he had to adjust to a new marketplace, but was now returning to his familiar locale on a national platform. Through the program’s nearly decade-long run on CBS Sports Radio, the hosts established chemistry with one another on the air and cultivated their own, compelling sound. Tierney, undoubtedly, had to adjust his hosting style, but he also assisted Barber in assimilating into sports media after a contentious ending to his playing career.
“I think it took him time to learn what’s required in this medium to be effective, and that is to deliver polarizing opinions; you just have to do it,” Tierney said. “I don’t know that it came naturally for him at that point. Once it became more instinctual, he just took off. He started to fly higher, and then simultaneously we started to fly higher.”
For Tierney, he believes the stint hosting national radio with Barber helped him improve as a partner more so than as a host. During his early years in the industry Tierney was focused on his own development.
At ESPN New York 1050 AM, he was originally Stephen A. Smith’s sports update anchor, but found a way to weave into the show. It led Smith to add him as a co-host to help enhance his inherent deficiencies, one of which was coherently discussing baseball. Now for the first time in his career, it was on him to nurture his co-host.
“When you’re just chasing and you’re just so driven to go up the ladder, I think sometimes you can get in your [own] way and I did that sometimes,” Tierney expressed. “I think for myself, it was the right person and it was the perfect time for him to grow and for me to grow.”
When Audacy decided to move Marc Malusis and Maggie Gray out of middays and back onto CBS Sports Radio, the coveted midday slot on WFAN suddenly became vacant. Upon discovering that he and Barber were going to be filling the void, Tierney emphasized to his partner the honor it is to move to the studios next door.
“I said, ‘What we’re about to do together; the energy that you’re going to get from one show is going to match what you get in a week or a month on the national scene,’” Tierney remembers telling Barber. “It was an injection of, I wouldn’t say combustibility, but an injection of all the things that pulled me into radio and communication in the first place – and that is being kept on your toes by the most informed, invested listeners and fans in the world – and that’s New York fans.”
Had Tierney never been able to reach WFAN in his broadcast career, he would have unquestionably carried a sense of falling short and not feeling completely fulfilled.
“We were pumped [and] we were absolutely all in,” Tierney said. “You just hope that if you’re true to yourself and you’re true to your craft and you don’t change, that the audience is going to reward you in listenership and loyalty, and they absolutely did.”
Two-and-a-half years later, the only thing that is not changing in middays is Tierney’s steadfast commitment to WFAN and New York sports.
“While it’s me and Sal, the elements of Tiki and Tierney are gone,” Tierney stated. “The moment that our show ends, the show is buried except for the memories and now everything starts new. That is really, really exciting.”
Listeners of WFAN will gain a sense of nostalgia and be transported back to the days of Mike and the Mad Dog with Tierney and Licata. Both men know the program will have a surfeit of fireworks, but also operate with largesse of calculated restraint. There will unquestionably be an adjustment period though – with Licata hosting alongside a partner after doing overnights solo and Tierney adjusting to a new voice after working with Barber for 12 years.
“You’ve got to be in the same room with somebody to get a sense for what makes them tick; what their strengths are [and] what their weaknesses are,” Tierney said. “We’re both going to come out firing; that’s just our nature. We’re shooters – we like to shoot – and the key for us is to learn when it’s time to pass. When we pass – to let that other guy finish with a 360° jam and get out of the way.”
Similarly to Tierney, Licata grew up listening to WFAN in New York City and frequently called into Adam Schein’s overnight program. He interned at the station in the early 2000s and loves New York teams. The stark contrast comes in the baseball teams they cheer on – Licata is a fan of the Mets while Tierney is a fan of the Yankees – and it will be a disparity long overdue for a station in the self-professed sports capital of the world.
“I don’t believe that there’s ever been such a fanatical Mets fan and a fanatical Yankees fan paired together – ever – in the history of WFAN,” Tierney said. “Right there, that is a unique starting point that is going to present [an] amazing opportunity…Right away, you have a point of inflection where we’re both carrying the card for a fanbase that’s never been carried like this before, at least potentially in theory.”
When Craig Carton was considering his departure from WFAN, program director Spike Eskin and Audacy New York market manager Chris Oliviero had plenty of options to consider for the afternoon slot. Carton had been working at WFAN without a contract for nine months as he weighed the feasibility of working on his national morning television program, The Carton Show, on FOX Sports 1 and then hosting Carton and Roberts in the afternoons. Carton reportedly was offered an increase in pay if he only appeared on FOX Sports 1, but his passion for radio and WFAN made taking a more lucrative offer profoundly challenging.
As he announced his departure from the station last month, listeners heard true gratitude combined with sadness. Carton now has more time to spend with his family and correct his previous wrongs – a means through his ongoing Audacy podcast titled Hello, My Name is Craig – but he has left the medium where he continuously accrued success. Even though Tierney did not know Carton particularly well, he texted a message of support amid the difficult circumstances leading to Carton’s arrest and eventual imprisonment. Then when Carton came back to the radio station three years later, Tierney restarted the conversation.
“He came back a different person – same electric talent, but different,” Tierney said. “I sent him another text and I said, ‘FAN’s better with you back,’ and I meant it. The key is for all of us to make sure we’re the same without Craig Carton. Let’s not pretend that we didn’t just lose a Hall of Famer.”
Tierney’s hosting style is derived from an irrefutable passion for the medium, institution and subject matter at hand. Despite hosting four hours a day on the radio being considered a job, it is, in essence, Tierney’s livelihood. The excitement jolts him to the studio each morning to commence a new journey filled with the elements of subliminal poetry and harmonious discordance.
“Certain shows, even ones that are highly successful, some shows sound as if that person wouldn’t want to be anywhere else in the world at that moment, and that applies to me – still,” Tierney said. “All these years later, [from] the moment I open up the mic, there’s nothing else I’d rather be doing.”
In its final ratings book, the duo of Tierney and Barber finished fourth in the New York designated market area with a 5.7 share among men 25 to 54. The traditional ratings measured by Nielsen Media Research have long served as earmarks of success, but for Tierney, a show is successful if it captivates his interest and does not make him want to stop listening after 30 seconds.
The human attention span continues to dwindle, and the content ecosystem is more vast than ever before. It is incumbent on media personalities to give people reasons to consume their content – and radio is in competition with every other medium. It is part of the reason why having the show simulcast is a top priority for Tierney upon its impending launch.
“I really think that we’re going to tap into an emotional space for the New York sports radio consumer and sports content consumer that has not been tapped into in a long time,” Tierney said. “Now we’ve got to fulfill that, but the potential when you blend our attributes; that excites me. That excites me in a way that I haven’t been excited in a long time.”
Few reach this point in a broadcast career, especially in the No. 1 media market in the country. Tierney and Licata both took unconventional paths to cement themselves in broadcasting and committing to the grind. Growing up listening to WFAN, working at the station was a necessity in order to build his ideal broadcast career – which has also previously included work on ESPN’s investigative program, Outside the Lines, and as a panelist on SportsNet New York (SNY) programming. Colossal sacrifice, relationship-building and an unyielding work ethic made the inexorable rise of Tierney nearly impossible to stop. He is one-half of a new duo prepared to give New York sports radio a blast of the past with a modern twist.
“If you want to be a doctor – get the requisite grades, go to medical school – there’s a clearly-defined path,” Tierney explained. “If you want to be a lawyer – get the requisite grades, go to law school; there’s a clearly-defined path, [but] if you want to be on the radio, much like being an actor, good luck. It’s got to start with that unflinching level of being possessed to get there; otherwise you’re probably not going to.”
