Chris Russo gets honest about First Take

If not for Chris Russo, you probably won’t be hearing about Major League Baseball on ESPN in the middle of July.

There’s NFL training camp, Olympic Basketball and Joe Burrow’s new haircut to get us through the dog days of summer. But if the “Mad Dog” gets a chance to sprinkle in some baseball talk on First Take , he’s gonna take it and pat himself on the back for it.

While promoting his baseball coverage on The Dan Patrick Show Thursday, Russo confessed to the complexities of straddling the line between his dedicated radio listeners and ESPN’s broader viewership. He frequently finds himself in the uncomfortable position of defending Stephen A. Smith’s remarks.

“Yeah, it’s tricky,” Russo said when Patrick asked if he feels he’s put in the position to validate or discredit what Smith says, “and I love him. Stephen A. — he’s a big factor. He’s the reason why I’ve had this little renaissance, and he’s been great to me, so I don’t want to hear it from my fans. But, let’s face it, you and I are doing sports talk; it’s a different kind of audience. My fans, your fans, have been following us for a long period of time. Normally, your fans, my fans, are not gonna watch debate shows in the morning on TV. I don’t know if the TV fans listen to the radio, and I don’t know if the radio fans watch the TV.

“It’s a little like Boomer Esiason doing radio on WFAN in New York; his radio audience and his TV audience are two different things. So, you have to juggle that. Furthermore, remember, on ESPN, you do a lot of NBA. Now, you know better than anybody — even Olympics stuff — I do plenty of NBA, but in the middle of January, I’m not gonna break down a regular season game between the Thunder and the T-Wolves. And on ESPN, they would do that.

“And so, I always get asked, ‘Chris, how much NBA can you do on ESPN?’ Well, what do you want me to do? I don’t handle the format; that’s up to them. ‘Chris, we’re talking NBA today,’ we’re talking NBA. I gotta keep my mouth shut and figure out a way to do it. And again, I’m not gonna do that on the radio.”

Patrick was intrigued and asked Russo if he’d ever pushed back during pre-production meetings about topics like the excessive coverage of Bronny James.

To his credit, Russo admitted that he had.

“You’ll be proud of me. I’ll give you the perfect example. Yesterday, I said, ‘Guys, you have to give me a quick take,'” Russo said. “‘Alright, what do you want to do, Chris?’ You know, that little one-minute thing…At first we were gonna do Mets-Yankees and then I thought about it, ‘No, do the quick take on Paul Skenes pitching in the ninth inning…Give me that.’ So, they gave me a one-minute quick take on Paul Skenes.

“So, I felt I made a contribution to the diversity and versatility of TV sports talk by doing something…A minute, I got a minute! But they had the highlight up! How many times — you would know better than anybody — would ESPN want to do something on Paul Skenes in the morning in the middle of July with football training camps and all that? Never a chance. So, I feel like I made a little contribution. It made me feel good. I take my little wins. I take my little wins when I can get them, Mr. Patrick.”

The constant chatter about Bronny James on ESPN morning shows can be numbing, and the same goes for the Aaron Rodgers saga. However, Russo understands the latter’s prominence due to the early days of training camp. At the same time, he also believes ESPN overemphasizes the Dak Prescott contract situation.

“Who cares for crying out loud? Let’s watch the games,” he added. “So, I have to do some of that. And those are the topics that we don’t normally do on the radio, on a daily basis. But I’ll tell you, Dan, something that’s interesting. Especially this time of the year, and you know how hard it is to do sports talk necessarily this time of the year. A lot of times, I use what I did in the morning on the Tuesdays and the Wednesdays, and I’ll use that for the radio as content to fill 15 minutes.”

Sometimes, you have to use one topic to pacify two audiences.

[ The Dan Patrick Show ]

The post Chris Russo praises Stephen A. Smith: ‘He’s the reason why I’ve had this little renaissance’ appeared first on Awful Announcing .