Mike Golic Jr. on working alongside his father: ‘I have more of an appreciation now’

It has been a hectic 2025 for both Mike Golic Jr. and Mike Golic Sr., who were briefly free agents after their respective contracts were not renewed by DraftKings at the beginning of the year. But fortunately, it didn’t take long for FanDuel Sports Network to scoop up the father-son tandem, which has given Golic Jr. to have a new appreciation for working with his father.

Golic Jr. and Golic Sr. were able to land on their feet amid uncertainty. But as Golic Jr. has learned during his time at the ESPN, which featured several rounds of layoffs before leaving on his own terms in 2022 after Golic Sr. left the company a year and a half earlier, working in the sports media space is anything but a certain career path.

“It’s been a lot of learning for me ever since February 2022 when I left ESPN. That had been a place that I had known my entire life,” said Golic Jr. in an interview with John Mamola of Barrett Sports Media. “I got to ESPN, and layoffs had never been a reality during my dad’s career. I think we had five rounds of layoffs in the six years that I was there. We’ve seen it industry-wide. I really try not to take for granted the fact that I have people that are still willing to give me opportunities in an industry where there are fewer of those with each passing year.

“The opportunity to keep working with Dad has been awesome in this new setting. I’ve seen him fired up about how it’s going and having a lot of fun with it. Coming into my career, getting to work with my dad meant something different than it does now. I have more of an appreciation. We got to do it at ESPN, and then that opportunity was taken away from us when Golic & Wingo ended. We weren’t sure if we were going to get it back.”

Even though Golic Jr. enjoys working with his father, that hasn’t stopped him from venturing into projects on his own. Earlier this month, Golic Jr. announced that he would be co-hosting a new podcast called The Echoes: A Podcast on Notre Dame alongside Jessica Smetana, which launched last week.

Speaking to his excitement about the project, Mike Golic Jr. explained how the project has been in the works since a conversation with Rich Cooke, the Vice President at Sinclair, at the Super Bowl in February.

“We want to take you under the helmet and inside the huddle, but also in the message boards,” said Golic Jr.. “I think we’ll have a lot of bases covered in the way that should be fun. “I talked to Rich Cooke about it a little bit at the Super Bowl this year about what they were trying to put together. For me, Notre Dame is always something I’m very passionate about. It’s such a big part of my friendship with Jessica [Smetana], who is a monster Notre Dame fan in her own right.”