Mike and Mike in the Morning

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Mike and Mike in the Morning
Format	Sports talk
Starring	Mike Greenberg Mike Golic
Country of origin	United States
Production
Running time	4 hours
Broadcast
Original channel	ESPN Radio (1998-present) ESPN2 (2006-present) ESPN2HD (2007-present) ESPNews (2004-2005)
Original run	October 12, 1998 – present
Chronology
Preceded by	The Bruno-Golic Morning Show
External links
Official website

Mike and Mike in the Morning is an American sports-talk radio show hosted by Mike Golic and Mike Greenberg on ESPN Radio and simulcast in television, normally on ESPN2. If ESPN2 is broadcasting a live sporting event during the show, the show's simulcast will then end up on ESPNews. The show primarily focuses on the day's biggest sports topics and the humorous banter between the Mikes.

On May 7, 2007, the show moved from its longtime radio studio home to the television studio used for Sunday NFL Countdown and Baseball Tonight, and began broadcasting in high-definition.

A daily "best-of" show airs daily on ESPN, a weekly radio recap aired Saturday mornings at 6:00am to 7:00am and then moved to 5 a.m. ET before being discontinued in October 2009. As of August 11, 2008, the "best-of" show will only be on ESPN2 because of the new live SportsCenter block on ESPN.

Design

The show centers on an Odd Couple relationship between its hosts, and how it relates to their views on sports. The show's motto for all commercials on radio and television is: "What makes them different makes them great."

Mike Greenberg is portrayed as a stereotypical nerd and with a man-crush on former New York Jets and current Miami Dolphins quarterback Chad Pennington (any mention of Pennington's name is usually punctuated by the "And Iiii.." from the final chorus of Whitney Houston's version of "I Will Always Love You.") In 2008, Golic forced Greeny to "break up" with Pennington due to his being replaced as starter by Brett Favre. Meanwhile, former Notre Dame and NFL lineman Mike Golic is set up in the role of the tough and boisterous "man's man," a former pro athlete who likes nothing more than to eat and "tell it like it is." Although similarly to Greenberg's man-crush on Chad Pennington, recently Golic is portrayed to have a similar affection for Cleveland Browns Quarterback Brady Quinn (Quinn and Golic both are Notre Dame alumni and Ohio natives). Any mention of Quinn on the show is usually followed by a small sampling from Enrique Iglesias's song "Hero."

The former logo of Mike and Mike in the Morning until May 4, 2007.

Regular guest hosts and contributors

Current regular guest hosts include Erik Kuselias and regular contributors Buster Olney, Mark Schlereth and Trey Wingo. Other regular contributors include Peter Gammons, Chris Mortensen, Tim Kurkjian, Dick Vitale, Steve Phillips, Tim Legler, and Jayson Stark. The show's producers, Liam Chapman and Curt "Joaquin" Kaplan, often contribute musical parodies and host the Saturday morning "Best-of" show.

The ESPN Radio SportsCenter update anchors for the show are Bob Picozzi and Christine Lisi. When the TV simulcast began broadcasting in HD, the radio SportsCenter updates were no longer simulcast on ESPN2, replaced by TV-specific SportsCenter updates, usually anchored by Sage Steele, Jonathan Coachman, Darren Lyn, George Smith or Michael Kim. They are now mainly done by Michael Kim and Reischea Canidate.

Greeny and Golic on other ESPN and ABC ventures

The team of Greeny and Golic has also worked in other ESPN ventures, including a game show (ESPN Bowling Night), and coverage of the Scripps National Spelling Bee. From 2000-2001, they were occasional panelists for the ESPN game show 2 Minute Drill. For 2007, they were the lead broadcast team for ESPN's coverage of the Arena Football League. It was announced in June 2007 that Greenberg and Golic would also call a National Football League game together for ESPN, broadcasting the second game of ESPN's Week 1 Monday Night Football doubleheader along with former NFL coach and player Mike Ditka. In June 2008, ESPN announced that the "Three Mikes" will return to broadcast the second game of the opening 2008 Monday Night Football doubleheader. Greenberg also hosts the Monday edition of SportsCenter while Golic will once in a while appear on SportsCenter.

Starting on December 17, 2007, Greenberg also hosted the game show Duel. The show lasted for 16 episodes. The first six episodes were part of a first season high stakes tournament, while the remaining ten episodes focused on a weekly series with a top prize of $500,000.

Roast

The duo was roasted on January 11, 2008, in Atlantic City, New Jersey, at the House of Blues, with a portion of the proceeds to benefit the V Foundation. Guests included Jeffrey Ross, Frank Caliendo (pre-recorded video only), Mike Ditka, Chad Johnson, Clinton Portis, Ed Reed, Charlie Weis, Eddie Griffin, Joe Klecko, Trey Wingo, Mark Schlereth, Dana Jacobson, and Wink Martindale. Musical group Lifehouse performed live. The Roast made national news when it was reported that an apparently intoxicated Jacobson cursed the University of Notre Dame and Jesus Christ.^[1][2] ESPN released a statement apologizing for any offense given to the Notre Dame Football program. Jacobson was suspended from ESPN for one week. Upon returning from her suspension, she apologized on air for her behavior and comments. No video or transcript of the roast was ever released.

The Bruno-Golic Morning Show

Prior to Greenberg's arrival, the show was co-hosted by Golic and Tony Bruno; this pairing (which broadcast from 1995 to 1998) was entitled the Bruno-Golic Morning Show.

TV simulcasting

In 2004, the show began simulcasting its full four hours on ESPNews. Ratings for the duo were extraordinarily high, especially for being on the "minor league" of the ESPN networks only offered in a few markets on anything other than digital cable or satellite packages. To capitalize on the large viewership potential the simulcast was moved to the more established ESPN2 in 2006. This change pushed the morning show Cold Pizza back till 10 a.m. In 2007, the show began to be broadcast in HD, which required the move to the ESPN digital center. The radio version of the show benefits greatly from airing live on the easily accessible cable channel. Potential listeners may discover the show through the ESPN2 broadcast or tune in during their ride to work upon hearing of a guest or topic that piques their interest. When ESPN2 covers live sporting events during Mike and Mike (The Australian Open, World Baseball Classic, etc) the show airs live on ESPNews. After the event's coverage is over the simulcast is moved back onto ESPN2 if possible.

Segments

Greenberg and Golic on new HD set.

Daily

• Mike Golic's News of the Weird: A look at one of the more outrageous, strange or disturbing stories found in recent news, typically outside the sports world. (And usually very disturbing to sensitive constitutions like Greeny's, which Golic revels in.)

Weekly

• Monday Morning Quarterback: Every Monday morning during the NFL season, Greenberg and Golic discuss all of the games of the day before.
• Stone Cold Lead Pipe Locks: On Fridays during the NFL season, Mike and Mike each pick NFL game-winners (originally, the format was two picks of their own and then one head-to-head. The last two seasons, each of the Mikes picked one game of their own, and then the head-to-head matchup.) based on point spreads. These picks have comical undertones with soundbites (sport stars, celebrities, TV/Movie quotes often from the TV series Family Guy), put together by producer Curt "Joaquin" Kaplan, in between analysis of the matchups. This feature originated during Tony Bruno's tenure on the show, and Bruno took a variation of it with him to Fox Sports, referring to his can't miss predictions as "Stone Cold Locks."
• Man Up Question of the Day: A question asked of Golic (and sometimes the listeners) meant to inform male listeners (and Greenberg) of how to be more manly. The segment often is an off shoot of something either Mike has done during the week.

Yearly

• "Sheet of Integrity" NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament Wager: See below.
• Mike and Mike's "Two-a-Days": A 16 day preview of the upcoming National Football League season. The Mikes take a look at two of the league's 32 teams per day during which they ask the main questions which the teams might have to answer this season. This culminates with a prediction of their record for the season. Once all 32 teams have been profiled, which is timed to be a day or so before the Thursday Night Kickoff Game the Mikes then predict the Super Bowl champion.
• V Foundation: Every year, on the slowest sports day of the summer (the day after Major League Baseball's All-Star Game) Mike and Mike kick off the on-air portion of ESPN Radio's annual auction to raise money for the V Foundation for Cancer Research, named for former N.C. State basketball coach and ESPN analyst Jim Valvano. They take the whole show to auction off items, such as a day with Mike and Mike, meeting them and having breakfast after the show. One item in the 2008 auction is that Mike and Mike will do their radio show from the winner's residence. One of the traditions the Mikes do on this day is that they will dedicate one segment of their program to re-air Valvano's stirring speech at the first ESPY Awards, where the motto of the V Foundation was coined: "Don't give up. Don't ever give up."

Irregular

• Grill Golic: Listeners call in to ask questions directed at Mike Golic. The questions usually revolve around football. This is the only time (generally) that listeners' calls are heard on the air. If Golic has off, the feature is occasionally used for the guest hosts, an example being "Grill Gottlieb" if Doug Gottlieb is guest hosting.
• Just Shut Up: Tuesdays on the show were once deemed "Just Shut Up Tuesday," a reference to the McDonald's Just Shut Up Award, an honor bestowed on the sports-related figure of the past week voted by listeners as the person who most needs to just shut up. Past winners (and examples of the types of actions that could induce a nomination) include Bode Miller bragging about partying in Torino, Terrell Owens fighting with his teammates, and Latrell Sprewell turning down a multi-million-dollar contract extension and asking for more money, claiming "I've got a family to feed." The feature was discontinued in late 2007 though will still occur for special occasions.

Off Mikes

In 2005, ESPN and Animax Entertainment began producing two to three minute cartoons of Greeny and Golic, called Off Mikes. The cartoons are built around conversations and arguments of the two from the show. Off Mikes can be found on ESPN.com. The cartoons have won an Emmy award.

Sheet of Integrity

"Sheet of Integrity" is a phrase coined by Mike Greenberg^[3] describing a single bracket entry created for wagering on the NCAA basketball tournament. Greenberg holds the belief that if a person wishes to enter multiple pools, they should do so using the same picks for each entry. Golic has no problem with choosing different winners for each entry he submits, because, as he says, "I want to win the pool and win the caaash!" The two have good-naturedly debated this difference of opinion each year since 2000. In 2007, Lowe's sponsored the Brackets of Integrity Sweepstakes, an online tournament pool which allowed listeners of Mike and Mike in the Morning to play against Greenberg and Golic using bracket sheets of their own. Amusingly, the rules allowed each participant to create up to five different "Sheets of Integrity." The hosts' differences were summed up in 2005 in two separate parodies of Billy Joel's song "Honesty" (renamed "Integrity"), as sung by each host in support of their wagering philosophies.

In 2009, Werner's (a ladder company which supplies the official ladders that the NCAA champion team climbs to cut down the nets after the tournament) sponsored the online sweepstakes.

Bracket Wager

During the week prior to the 2004 tournament, the two decided to take their differences one step further, which resulted in a one-on-one office pool referred to as the Sheet of Integrity Challenge. Mike Greenberg ultimately won that first wager, which concluded with Mike Golic getting his eyebrows waxed on-air.

Mike Golic turned the tables in 2005, for which Mike Greenberg had to dress up as a leprechaun (the mascot of Mike Golic's alma mater, the University of Notre Dame) for the entirety of the show.

Golic won again in 2006, for which Mike Greenberg once again had to dress in the leprechaun outfit, but this time at a remote held near campus of Notre Dame.^[4]

The 2007 bracket wager originally had Mike Golic getting tasered if he lost and Mike Greenberg having to milk a cow if he lost.^[5] Prior to the semi-finals, however, "the Suits" at ESPN (meaning upper management) determined that the tasering could not occur. (Apparently there was more risk of injury than ESPN was willing to take.) As it turned out, Golic's half of the wager was never fully determined: in the end, he won the bet anyway (thanks to Ohio State beating Georgetown in the Final Four semifinal)^[6], and Greenberg not only milked a cow in-studio on the June 21 broadcast, but also wore a "bedazzled" Mike Vrabel jersey for the entire September 3 broadcast, which is being auctioned off in support of Vrabel's charity, The Second and Seven Foundation" (secondandseven.com). (The original bet had Greenberg wearing said Vrabel jersey AT the season-opening Patriots-Jets game at the Meadowlands. However, his Monday Night Football assignment in San Francisco prevented him from attending the game.)

The 2008 wager (this time, the stakes were decided by voting by the fans of the show from lists of five that each Mike consented to) was that if Greenberg lost, he would have to dye his hair a different color each day for a week. If Golic lost, he would challenge professional eaters in a live eating contest on the air. With Memphis's victory over Texas in the Elite Eight, Greenberg clinched the 2008 title. A promotional voice-over (all voice-over promotions on the show are created by producers Joaquin and Liam) nicknamed the May 1, 2008 event the "Feast on the First" in the tradition of the "Thrilla in Manila". Golic finished in fourth after consuming 15 boneless wings in 3 minutes, finishing behind the three professional eaters: Eater X (31 wings), Crazy Legs Conti (23 wings), and Pretty Boy (22 wings).

The 2009 wager once again led to fans voting online, this time between three punishments all which would apply to either loser (instead of each having their punishment). The fans choose whether the loser would have to: walk on hot coals, grow a beard for a month, or have his forearms and leg waxed live on air. On the March 18th broadcast it was revealed that the waxing option had received the most votes with 48%, while the beard and hot coal options received 40% and 12% respectively. Mike Greenberg won the 2009 wager with the elimination of Golic's national champion, Pittsburgh (Mike Golic conceded the issue in a phone call to the show on his day off on March 30, 2009.). Golic got his legs and forearms waxed on the show on April 29, 2009.

Counting the 2009 wager, the series is now tied at three wins apiece.

Songs

After coming from the commercial break, usually an R&B or Hip-Hop song is played. Mainly from artists such as Akon and T-Pain. Greeny will typically do a funny dance and Golic will laugh at him or chastise him for doing it, or Greeny will make a comment to the music.

References

External links

• ESPN Show page
• ESPN Radio
• Emmy winning Off-Mikes Cartoon Show
• Mike Greenberg's Official Fan Page
• Mike Golic's Unofficial Fan Page
• Mike and Mike Video on ESPN Video Archive