Mike Francesa’s long-rumored app will be launching on Friday afternoon, and details were finally revealed on Thursday.
https://twitter.com/mikeson/status/1032712192469159936
First, the bad news – the app will cost $8.99 per month (!!!!!!) or $98.99 for a year subscription (which essentially just gives you a free month of service). The year subscription also comes with “discounts on event tickets and merchandise,” hopefully not via a promo code on SeatGeek or another ticketing resale website that sponsors various podcasts.
Now, the good (I guess) news: the app comes with a bunch of stuff outside of Francesa’s radio show, which is outlined below. It also comes with a free two-week trial.
- Home to “Mike Francesa’s Football Sunday Show”
- Additional and immediate commentary from Francesa on major news and events
- “The Saturday Special”
- New college football show to preview the biggest games of the weekend
- Francesa50
- Previewing and recapping the 50 largest sporting moments on the calendar
- Live video simulcast of every daily show broadcast on WFAN
What it really comes down to is this: you’re getting a video simulcast of a free radio show, extra weekend content during the fall, and “immediate commentary” from Francesa on various events and news. Is that worth $8.99 a month? To me, it clearly isn’t, but then again, I’m not a Francesa listener. Will his diehard listeners shell out the cash for…I don’t know, maybe five or six hours of extra content a week? Probably, but there are only so many hours in the day, and if you’re busy and miss a couple of the football shows, how motivated would you be to stay subscribed?
It almost seems like this is *too much* Francesa. Are listeners devoted enough to Francesa to consume all of this extra content while still listening to (or watching) his radio show? That’s asking a lot, and seems like it’s almost asking listeners to choose between Francesa and whatever else you’re doing on weekend mornings or when these flash updates roll in.
