It’s Mike vs. Marchand.
Two days after sending New York into a frenzy by stating Entercom and the Mike’s On app may not be compatible, Francesa conducted an epic rant of which New York Post reporter, Andrew Marchand received the brunt of.
Since announcing his new Mike’s On app would cost subscribers $8.99 per month, Francesa has received plenty of questions about the platform’s success and worth. Marchand has been largely critical of the app, mocking its quality of content and quantity of subscribers.
After reporting Michael Kay was threatening Francesa in the fall ratings book and stating the Sports Pope could soon drop either the app or his FAN show, Francesa lost his patience and unleashed a 15 minute verbal attack on the New York Post reporter. “A little wanna be who couldn’t get a job at FAN,” said Mike.
“It’s just him shooting a bunch of nonsense…like he did about ratings, which he got from somebody at an opposing station because they thought they might have beat me for a week, but what he didn’t report was I took off time that week to do the Adam Sandler movie, he forgot to bring that up…but of course he wouldn’t…because he’s that poor of a reporter.”
According to Francesa, Marchand stated the Mike’s On app had just 300 subscribers. Mike negated the report, upping the ante by offering Marchand $10,000 per subscriber in cash if he could prove the app had less than 1,000 subscribers, a small sum of $10 million. But if the number of subscribers totaled more than 1,000, Marchand had to pay $10,000 for every subscriber over 1,000 to a charity. It seemed like a trivial way of making a point, but when Marchand contacted WFAN PD Mark Chernoff to set up a time to discuss the app, he was told Francesa ridiculously demanded $500,000 in escrow.
During a recent appearance on Jimmy Traina’s Sports Illustrated Media Podcast, Marchand was asked if he was the one who reported the Mike’s On app only had 300 subscribers. “I did not report the 300,” said Marchand, adding “I don’t believe that it’s going too well.”
So where did the 300 number come from? In a September appearance on Traina’s podcast, Marchand said the following.
“Is Mike really going to get the guests that he once did? Is the Green Bay Packers coach going to come on like he once did on the FAN show when they taped it during the week? I just can’t imagine if you’re the Green Bay Packers PR guy and they call you up and say we’d like to have Mike McCarthy on and they’re going to say ‘well what’s your listenership?’…well we have 300 people that have downloaded the app.”
It certainly wasn’t an endorsement of Mike’s app, but the 300 number presented by Marchand was used as an example more than a report.
While Marchand has no plans to put $500,000 in escrow to do an interview with Francesa, nor should he, Mike took to Twitter to disparage the Post reporter one more time Wednesday night.
“The little weasel said I didn’t have 300 subs. Said last night he only knew of one subscriber. But when challenged at 1,000 (One thousand) subs. He would get 10,000 dollars in cash for every sub under 1,000. He ran. FRAUD and LIAR” tweeted Francesa.
Mike is under no obligation to release his number of app subscribers to the public, there is little precedent for doing so, but some of Marchand’s complaints about the app remain legitimate. If Mike could get past the unrealistic $10,000 per subscriber wager, an on-air meeting between Francesa and Marchand could be great radio, maybe it would even be smart to make at an app exclusive.
Brandon Contes is a freelance writer for BSM. He can be found on Twitter @BrandonContes. To reach him by email click here.
