This week represents the 10-year anniversary of FS1. When the network launched in August 2013, Fox put every resource possible behind it to build a true competitor to ESPN’s monopoly over the sporting landscape. While FS1 has found some level of success and has certainly found a solid, long-lasting foundation, it’s a very different network now compared to when it started.
Ten years after the launch of FS1, a lot has changed for Dan O’Toole. O’Toole and Jay Onrait came down from Canada in 2013 for Fox Sports Live, with the first version of that show incorporating both them and an extensive athlete panel. That then progressed to a highlight-focused 2.0 version more akin to SportsCenter or their old TSN shows. After that, it turned into a shortened 3.0 version that shifted towards more of a late-night show model.
O’Toole and Onrait returned to Canada in 2017 after Fox didn’t renew their contracts. O’Toole then hosted SportsCentre with Jay and Dan alongside Onrait again for four years but was laid off by TSN in 2021. He now hosts the Boomsies! podcast for BetRivers.
This week, O’Toole spoke to Awful Announcing about his time at Fox. He said it’s still somewhat surprising to him that move came together, as not long before it happened, Fox had told him and O’Toole they were going to do something different.
“It almost feels like a dream that it actually even happened,” O’Toole said. “Because there was a time there where we had started talks, Jay and I, to go to Fox, and a couple months later, they decided ‘Oh, we’re going in a different direction.’ And oh well, you know, it was like being flirted with by the prom queen: ‘Okay, well, at least they kind of liked us?'”
“And then three months later, they said ‘No, we want to go with you guys.’ So it went from hot to cold to scorching hot, and then, in the blink of an eye, we were standing in the lobby at Fox to start a new network.”
O’Toole said that also got weird in how long he and Onrait remained at TSN after making the decision to go to Fox.
“We look back, and it was The Long Goodbye, because Jay and I, we were on…we gave our notice to our former employer, and then it felt like we were on air for like two months saying goodbye. Why didn’t we just say ‘Here’s our two weeks’ notice?’ and then take off and take some time off work? Because I think we took a few days off and joined Fox. We would have done it differently in hindsight and not done an extended farewell tour.”
Even though the Fox stint didn’t work out in the end, O’Toole said it was worth the gamble.
“What really stuck with me was a former boss. We went to him for guidance, and he said, ‘Dan, if you were my son and I was still running this network, I would say ‘Take the offer.” Because we were on the fence. Everything was going great. And then, once he said that, we were like ‘Let’s do it.’ And I’m so glad we did. We would be filled with what-ifs for the rest of our lives if we didn’t do it.”
But there were plenty of odd things about what O’Toole and Onrait were asked to do on air, starting with the first version of Fox Sports Live that incorporated that Charissa Thompson-hosted athlete panel.
“Oh my god. It was like they put every sports talk show idea in a washing machine and then just were like ‘Hey, let’s try this out?’ And I remember saying to Jay when they first gave us the pitch for the show and then we talked after, we’re like ‘That’s not going to work. It’s just too many people!'”
“It was a three-hour show with literally about 15 people around. I was like ‘How is anyone going to make any sense of any of this, and who’s going to sit through this?’ But of course, when it’s something shiny and brand new, we’re like, ‘No, no, this will have an audience, people will like this.'”
O’Toole said the athletes on that panel were excellent, though, and he still keeps in touch with some of them even now that they’re in dramatically different places.
“I have nothing but great memories. I actually just sent Andy Roddick a text, I was watching this Johnny Manziel doc, and I’m like ‘Andy Roddick got name-checked!’ Andy was the hardest-working panelist; I’d go over to the cafeteria and he’d be studying his notes and stuff. He took it very seriously. I remember Gabe Kapler, he was advising me on my workouts, and now he’s a Major League Baseball manager.”
“Gary Payton, he cracked me up, he was one of those guys every time you see him, just a smile from ear to ear. Just a quality human. Ephraim Salaam is now a freaking movie producer, he’s also one of the greatest humans I’ve ever met. And the behind-the-scenes people were really what made it work.”
“And to this day, lifelong friends with every single person involved with that show. I don’t have any ill will towards any person I worked with, on camera or off camera. It was just like we were on a big summer camp excursion together. And when you’re with people for that long, for that many hours a night, you can’t help but join forces knowing you’re in it together.”
One bit that carried on from the athlete panel was the fake Me and My Boys sitcom bit O’Toole and Onrait did with Salaam, which showed up on both later versions of Fox Sports Live and The Jay and Dan Podcast. O’Toole said they had a great time doing that with Salaam.
“Me and My Boys! Yeah, we just found it very humourous, the fact that he would adopt us and take us into his home and just be our dad, because Jay and I are men, but we’re really children. He’s a grown man, and he acts like a man. So we just thought this would be a great premise. And I’m actually surprised Fox didn’t run with it. Because they’ve run with a lot of worse show ideas.”
The 2.0 version of Fox Sports Live was closer to what O’Toole and Onrait had done in Canada, with just the anchors and without the athlete panel. But O’Toole said it seemed like the network still wasn’t sure what to do with them, and they still didn’t have the freedom to really make it their show, even after signing new contracts in 2015.
“It felt great, but we always joked that it was like ‘Well, everyone else’s contracts ran out, but we still have these guys under contract. We gotta do something with them.’ It was kind of like Office Space where they kept moving him to the smaller desks. ‘Maybe he just won’t show up one day.'”
“It was good and bad; it was more our style, but it still wasn’t us. It was heavily scripted. And when we tried to go off-script, it would get edited out. And we did a lot of bits that I didn’t like. I still didn’t enjoy that.”
After FS1 ended Fox Sports Live in February 2016, they launched a third version, Fox Sports Live with Jay and Dan, later that month. That version was one of the stranger concepts for a nightly sports show, as it was more of a late-night show, pre-taped, and focusing on comedy and interviews. O’Toole said that still wasn’t great, but the interviews they got to conduct were a highlight.
“It wasn’t us. We were again heavily scripted, we were reading bits. But we got to do some pretty cool interviews, some of the best interviews we did. Nate Diaz-Conor McGregor, we’re like ‘This is amazing!’ So we got to interview very cool people, but the rest of the show, I didn’t enjoy it at all. It just never felt at home. But of all the versions, that was probably my favourite version, but that’s like asking someone their favourite flavor of antifreeze.”
O’Toole said he’s not upset about how the various TV shows went, but just doesn’t feel they were authentic. But he said one TV element that was when he and Onrait went to the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, remarkable considering that Fox didn’t have rights to that event.
“I’m not painting a picture like our entire time on TV was bad, it just wasn’t us. The one thing that we did that I would put on my demo reel, if I ever put one together, was our time in Russia. Because somehow Jay and I convinced the powers that be that ‘We should go to Russia!’ We didn’t have the rights! And they said yes!”
“And Jay and I got to go to Russia and do our show, do little inserts for Fox Sports Live, and then we got to do these little pieces in which we just got to goof around. The producer there was Kyle Libby, who we’re friends with to this day.”
“And I’ve never laughed so hard as the times we were shooting those pieces. Because we were high on Russian McDonald’s and the aftereffects of Russian vodka the night before. It was a perfect combination of all this stuff, saying like ‘What are we doing here?!’ And we got to be ourselves. It only took us having to go to Russia to do it.”
He said the other highlight for him from his time at Fox was The Jay and Dan Podcast and the crew they got to work with there.
“That was my favorite part, because that’s where we were able to stay connected to Canada, and we got to introduce Canadians to a lot of our coworkers. Pat Muldowney worked on it, he was our social media guy, and he points to that as the favorite part of his entire media career. That’s all I need! Put that on my mantle! Someone involved in a stupid little podcast we’re doing thought that’s the most fun they ever had, that’s all I want to hear.”
“That’s my gold medal from my time at Fox, introducing the world to Engineer Jim and Mike Botticello and Pat Muldowney and Ben Teller. I’m very glad you brought that up, because that was the crowning achievement, the thing we did on the side and made no money off. But that was Jay and I, that was 1000 percent what we wanted to convey to the audience, but we never were able to on TV.”
As per particular podcast highlights, O’Toole called out Engineer Jim’s stories from the music world, the interviews with guests, and the fun they had whenever someone was late.
“I like any episode where we got some good stories from Engineer Jim. But it’s all also just stupid moments, like people showing up late to the podcast. We also had amazing guests on that, we had Conor McGregor on before anyone knew who Conor McGregor was, we had Ronda Rousey on there. It was just a chance to finally relax. We just hung out and shot the shit.”
He said it was remarkable how quickly he and Onrait were able to return to what they were used to when they came back to TSN in 2017.
“When we came back to Canada and we did our first rehearsal show before we went back on air, Jay turned to me and said ‘That felt better than four years of shows we did in the States.’ And I was like ‘I know!’ We were ourselves.”
And he wishes they’d had a chance to show off that version of themselves during their U.S. run.
“And people still, to this day, were like ‘We tried to watch you on Fox, and it just wasn’t the same,’ and I’m like ‘Yeah, because everything was overly produced, 10 producers involved in each segment.”
“And I still say that if we had AirDropped our show from Canada into the States, it would have worked a hell of a lot better. Like, even if they said ‘Guys, run it for a month, let’s see, what’s the worst that can happen? Run your show like you did in Canada for a month and we’ll see what happens.’ But that never happened.”
But O’Toole said he appreciates Fox management and what they invested in him and Onrait.
“Fox, the crew behind the scenes, I have nothing but love and respect for to this day. And they know how to treat their people right.”
And while Los Angeles is a long way from O’Toole’s origins in Peterborough or his time in Toronto with TSN, he said he enjoyed living there.
“I loved it. I lived first in Redondo Beach, and for people not familiar, it’s a little beach community where the ocean was at the bottom of the hill. For a kid who grew up on a farm just outside of Toronto in Canada, it was like ‘This is a dream come true.’ You dream of living by the beach.”
But he’s happy to be back in Canada now and said there are things he appreciates about that change.
“People always said ‘Do you miss the seasons?’, and when you’re in it, you’re like, ‘No!’ But now that I’m back in Canada, I take that back, because when it’s 75 or 80 every day and sunny, you take it for granted. But when you have a warm day in October in Canada, you cherish every single second of that day. I’m also a very good chameleon, I could adapt to any environment I’ve lived in. I make the best of where I am.”
O’Toole said he’s having a blast doing the Boomsies podcast now, and finds it partly a way to pass on some of how he’s grown through personal challenges.
“I get to get back into the podcast world. I didn’t know what I was going to do. It’s a perfect extension, almost like a spinoff from Friends, but better than Joey. I’ve been through a lot in my life, being let go from my job and other personal struggles, and it’s a chance to connect with people and help them if they’re struggling. It’s not a recovery podcast, but it’s a chance to tell people ‘Hey, things can get better. You can hit rock bottom, but the next day can be better.”
And he said the Boomsies name is one more thing he can credit his run at Fox for.
“It’s a lot of fun, and I get to do it from my house. And I get to bring in a term that was coined by one of our producers at Fox; he would get in our ear and say if there’s a dunk or something, ‘That’s a Boomies!’ ‘What?’ Or there would be a big goal, ‘Boomsies!'”
So when we were talking about this podcast, I was like ‘I’m going to use Boomsies!’ I text him, and he was like ‘I’d be honored if you’d use Boomsies.’ So the Boomsies origin story is from Fox Sports Live, there we go, we tied it all back together!”
[Image from Fox Sports on YouTube]
