Following his Tuesday broadcast on 97.5 The Fanatic, Mike Missanelli announced that he was stepping down from his position as host of The Mike Missanelli Show. Missanelli stated that his contract was coming to an end and that he and the company had decided to take a different path (though Missanelli remaining in another role has been discussed). He added that a new show had already been scheduled by the station.
After his one-year contract extension ran out in December, Crossing Broad reported that Missanelli had signed a short-term deal to keep him on the team. Missanelli has been a regular on Philly sports talk radio for years, and he is no stranger to controversy, which is par for the course in sports talk.
He was dismissed from 610 WIP in 2006 after assaulting a producer, according to rumors at the time. When he criticized female play-by-play announcers (particularly, Beth Mowins) and said they sounded “unnatural” in 2017, he lost a TV job with 6ABC in Philadelphia.
Mike Missanelli Made Statements on Something.
For his future, Missanelli predicted that he would remain at the company for “a long time” and that retirement was not an option.
Per Rob Tornoe of the Philadelphia Inquirer, the show’s NBC Sports Philadelphia simulcast will continue for now.
“It’s hard to believe I’m saying this, but today is my final day as host of The Mike Missanelli Show. In a few weeks, my present contract will expire, and the company and I have chosen to take a different path. When someone walks into Bull Durham and says,
“the organization wants to make a change,” it’s like that person. That is, after all, what is taking place. The station and I have discussed the possibility of my staying on in some capacity with the organization, but who knows. The only thing I can tell you is that they already have a new show under contract, and I’m sure you’ll hear about that in the next few days.”
Mike Broke Into Tears at The Announcement.
After stating that, Mike broke down in tears. There were notable pauses in his speech.
I’ll try to upload the remainder of it as soon as I can, but the audio version of the show won’t be available until later. The first thing that comes to mind is that this was a very well-executed project.
Since no one had the story when I approached them on Tuesday morning, I conclude that this was a Mike + Beasley thing that came to fruition late in the game. Good job, then, by those over there, keeping it under wraps (or maybe they had zero clue what was going on). Mike signed a one-year contract last year and then agreed to a short-term extension in December of 2021, as we had previously reported.
This Was Conveyed to Us in The Following Manner:
Mike was the one with the ball.
There was a willingness on Beasley’s part to work with Mike, extend his contract, and come up with a new arrangement, but they were waiting on Mike’s direction in this regard.
When you consider that Mike has his own website, has done a food show, and enjoys wine and golf in addition to all of the other things he does, you have to ask how much of his heart was in sports talk radio. Having done it for so long, I can’t really blame him if he wasn’t feeling it anymore. When Tony from Marlton isn’t telling him what to do, he can finally do what makes him happy.
On FM, Mike Was the Host of Fanatic.
Staying with Mike made sense from Beasley’s point of view, right?
Even if the afternoon ratings were a tad lower, Mike was always their most well-known personality and a fantastic sponsor. Even if the results weren’t stellar, Beasley would still profit from this event.
When you think that Mike was the anchor of the Fanatic on FM about 15 years ago, it’s a pretty substantial shift in perspective. Definitely a change in the guard at the station. We’ll have more information in the near future. Whoever the replacements are, I don’t know. However, I don’t know if Hunter Brody is in the running to be one of the show’s big dayparts. I guess we’ll find out soon enough.