It's hard to say goodbye.

The dynamic sports talk duo of Mike Francesa and Christopher "Mad Dog" Russo have gone their separate ways.

Here's a quick snippet from the Newsday article:


The reasons for the breakup are multi-faceted, and somewhat murky.

Operations manager Mark Chernoff said all parties agreed "the show has kind of run its course." But Russo said that was true only to a point.

He said he could have carried on but was motivated to explore other opportunities.

"Basically, I'm looking for a different challenge in my life," Russo said. "I'm 48 years of age. This might be the last chance I'm going to get for a challenge if I want to take it."

Russo swore on his children's lives that he has no firm agreement or contract, but industry sources say he is likely to land at Sirius Satellite Radio for a lucrative deal worth up to $15 million over five years.

"I have four or five options," he said. "Sirius would be one of them ... Obviously, I'm not stupid. I'm not going to leave FAN unless I have something relatively secure."

Their relationship had been strained for several months, but I didn't think it was going to end in a divorce.  I know a lot of fans like to rip on Mike and the Mad Dog (and I'm guilty of that, too), but they really changed the landscape of sports talk radio.  Were they arrogant?  Yep.  Were they sometimes way off the mark?  You bet.  But they were good at what they did.

And I'm not ashamed to admit that I'll miss listening to the godfathers of sports talk. Leave a comment

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