Boomer Esiason named to 2026 Radio Hall of Fame class

Nearly four decades after winning an NFL MVP with the Cincinnati Bengals, it’s his radio career that made Boomer Esiason a Hall of Famer.

The Radio Hall of Fame announced Esiason as part of its 2026 class of inductees Wednesday morning. Joining Esiason in the 2026 class will be Dennis Green, Shotgun Tom Kelly, Hellen Little, Bob Pittman, Rickey Smiley, Charlie Van Dyke, and Fred Winston.

WFAN announces Boomer Esiason will be inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame pic.twitter.com/l6As86rnPI

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) May 20, 2026

“I never thought in my wildest dreams 19 years ago when I started here that [the Hall of Fame] was going to be part of this whole thing,” Esiason said during his Wednesday morning WFAN radio show with co-host Gregg Giannotti. “And it’s due in large part to a lot of people, including yourself (Giannotti), Craig [Carton], Al [Dukes], Eddie [Scozzare], Jerry [Recco], and of course Joel Hollander who thought of me way back when in ’93 when I came here as the Jet quarterback and put me on with Mike and Chris at 5 o’clock in the afternoon.

“Then again when he took over Westwood One, put me in the Monday Night booth and gave me an opportunity to do Monday night games and then Super Bowls. And then of course when they called me in 2007 and paired me up with Craig, learning the business through the eyes of Craig, and Al, and Eddie, and Jerry in the beginning, and then you (Giannotti) coming here in the last eight years, I’ve had great teammates. This is a great place, I love the job.”

Esiason also made sure to give a shout out to Mark Chernoff, who was WFAN’s program director when Boomer and Carton was created nearly two decades ago.

While a case can certainly be made that Esiason deserves to be in the Pro Football Hall of Fame for his accolades as an NFL quarterback, there’s no doubt his second career in radio is worthy of the honor. Few people would have expected Esiason to last as long in morning radio as he has. But he fell in love with the medium and ingratiated himself to New York sports radio listeners with his willingness to say anything.

Esiason quickly became a pillar at one of the premier sports radio stations in the country when he joined WFAN in 2007. He was vital part in building two extremely successful iterations of WFAN’s morning show, first with Craig Carton for a decade, and now with Gregg Giannotti for eight years. Esiason has also provided stability through several lineup changes, including the departures of Chris Russo and Mike Francesa.

Francesa was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 2018, with Russo joining in 2022. The late Don Imus, who Esiason replaced on WFAN with Craig Carton in 2007, was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 1989. The 2026 Radio Hall of Fame class will be honored at an induction ceremony Thursday, October 8th at the Fairmont Hotel in Chicago.