ESPN Radio is adding a new program to its weekday schedule. The network will debut First and Last with Lundberg & Golic Jr., featuring Robin Lundberg and Mike Golic Jr., starting Monday, April 4th. The show will air weekdays from 4a-6a ET.
“We are constantly looking for new, aggressive ways of serving sports fans,” said David Roberts, vice president, ESPN Audio Network Content. “Providing sports talk and information LIVE around the clock during the week underscores our commitment to offering our listeners another opportunity to engage with our network through a strong opinion-based program. Robin Lundberg and Mike Golic Jr. will set the table perfectly for our flagship franchise, Mike and Mike.”
Lundberg has been a mainstay on ESPN New York 98.7 FM, hosting his own program, The Robin Lundberg Show, since 2012. He’s been with ESPN in a multitude of roles since 2006.
Golic Jr. joined ESPN in November 2015, teaming with his father, Mike & Mike co-host Mike Golic, on a college football and NFL-focused podcast, Mike & Mike Jr. Since then, he’s served as a guest host on Mike & Mike, a college football analyst during ESPN Radio’s broadcast of the the 2015 Hawai’i Bowl and debuted in January 2016 as a host of the weekend program Rothenberg Mike’d Up on ESPN Radio, with Dave Rothenberg and Michael Wallace.
Credit to ESPN Media Zone who originally reported this information
Jason Barrett is the owner and operator of Barrett Sports Media. Prior to launching BSM he served as a sports radio programmer, launching brands such as 95.7 The Game in San Francisco and 101 ESPN in St. Louis. He has also produced national shows for ESPN Radio including GameNight and the Dan Patrick Show. You can find him on Twitter @SportsRadioPD or reach him by email at JBarrett@sportsradiopd.com.
The Kansas City Chiefs visited the White House on Monday to celebrate their Super Bowl LVII championship. As part of the afternoon, the Chiefs received a tour of the historic presidential residence, were treated to a meal and participated in a ceremony with President Biden. The team presented Biden with a custom Chiefs jersey numbered “46” and with his name on the back, and created a viral moment when tight end Travis Kelce attempted to take the podium only to be shoved aside by quarterback Patrick Mahomes.
The Chiefs did not get to visit the White House when the team won Super Bowl LIV because of health and safety restrictions associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. It is safe to say the team made the most of the moment. It also gave the Chiefs time in the national media spotlight, which has been plentiful over the years, but perhaps garnered more respect from critics.
Travis Kelce wanted to get on the mic at the White House….
Bob Fescoe of 610 Sports Radio Kansas City recognized how the Chiefs were essentially counted out when the team traded star wide receiver Tyreek Hill to the Miami Dolphins, but still won the Super Bowl. He feels the sentiment was being pushed by national media outlets in order to benefit business strategy and collect the highest ratings possible.
“Having the same team over and over again – unless it’s a New York-based team or a New England-based team – doesn’t do much for ESPN,” Fescoe said. “It just doesn’t do much for that network when it’s not a team that’s in the Northeast. They’re trying to push their narrative that the Kansas City Chiefs can be upset because they believe it’s probably better for business to have it happen that way, at least that’s the way I perceive it.”
The Chiefs have posted a winning record for the last decade and recently had its winningest season in franchise history, culminating in the Super Bowl championship. Now as the team prepares for another year of football, Fescoe and partner Josh Klingler are taking notice of those commentators continuing to count them out. However, there has been a change in the aggregate disposition concordant with the bonafide dynasty.
“As long as Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid are running the show here in Kansas City, they’re going to have an opportunity to compete and contend for a Super Bowl,” Fescoe expressed. “I think acceptance is now starting to come around from the folks inside Bristol and some of the other national networks.”
Show co-host Josh Klingler found it notable that national shows were talking about the Chiefs as legitimate Super Bowl contenders with a chance to win three championships in a four-year span. The widespread recognition of the Chiefs as a talented football team and frontrunners to win the championship has ostensibly been a long time coming in the eyes of Kansas City sports fans.
Even so, there is still rhetoric pertaining to the Los Angeles Chargers and how if certain things had happened, the outcome of last season would have been drastically altered. Dan Orlovsky elocuted such remarks recently on ESPN, much to the chagrin of the morning drive show.
“He’s just out there throwing darts, man,” Fescoe said of Orlovsky.
Mike Jimenez is no longer part of San Antonio’s Sports Star. He took to social media on Tuesday to announce that he had been let go and the mid day show had been eliminated.
“I found out this morning that I was getting laid off,” he said in a video posted on Twitter. “I got the news about an hour ago and I was actually prepping for my show at the time when I got the news.”
He noted that this does not create a financial burden for him. He has run a successful financial practice out of his home for nearly two decades.
Jimenez says there is one change the move creates that he isn’t happy about.
“The one thing I’m going to miss the most about being in San Antonio’s Sports Star, is the fact that they gave me an excuse to be sociable all over again. Having a financial practice, especially one that is at home, can be kind of lonely sometimes. And it was nice interacting and having work friends all over again. That’s the one thing I’m going to miss the most, but I’m in a good place. I have no financial worries or anything like that.”
He was the co-host of Jimenez & Spence with PD Tim Spence. He noted that he has no hard feelings to any of his bosses or co-workers and wishes them the best as they move forward.
“I understand it’s not personal. It was business. And that’s the economics of being in radio.”
Colin Cowherd: I Didn’t Take Money From LIV Golf, But Didn’t Bad Mouth Hosts That Did
“I was offered six figures to do stuff with LIV Golf. I was invited to tournaments. I said, ‘No, thank you,’ but I didn’t lecture sportscasters that did.”
Colin Cowherd says the PGA Tour’s decision is pretty simple. It needed the biggest stars back. It needed the top draws on the top tour. So, when the opportunity to merge with LIV Golf was presented, all of the moral aggrandizing its golfers and leaders were doing last year went right out the window.
He couldn’t help but think about the crow those people and their supporters are having to eat now that they are willing to take money from the Saudi Arabian government, something they said was morally objectionable.
“The only people that are only right on the Internet are anonymous. Isn’t that a coincidence? They’re always right,” he said Tuesday on FOX Sports Radio. “And the only people with morals and values in the world are never offered big money or enormous opportunities. I don’t have to love the LIV Golf tour and everything it stands for.”
Cowherd added that he was offered money from LIV Golf. He didn’t accept it, but understood that others might.
“I was offered six figures to do some reads for the LIV Golf tour. I didn’t accept it, but. BUT! I didn’t bad-mouth other hosts that did. That’s the difference. I was offered six figures to do stuff with LIV Golf. I was invited to tournaments. I said, ‘No, thank you,’ but I didn’t lecture sportscasters that did. I didn’t lecture anybody that did. I’m not in their shoes. I don’t pay their taxes. I don’t have their life. I don’t know what’s going on.”
Some of golf’s biggest names defected from the PGA Tour last year to join LIV Golf. All of them were offered huge paydays to make the move. Cowherd said that sometimes the people that are lecturing others have to stop and think about how hard it would be to turn down that kind of windfall.
He added that there is a lesson in that that can be extended to everyday life as well. Money it is easy for him to turn down may mean something completely different to the members of the sports media that chose to do business with LIV Golf.
“I’m not in your shoes,” Cowherd said. “I don’t know what it means to your family. Maybe get your kids to college. I don’t know. You don’t know.”
