In April, Andrew Marchand of The New York Post reported that Craig Carton’s future at WFAN was up in the air. Carton has been co-hosting WFAN’s afternoon drive show with Evan Roberts since returning to the station in 2020 (following time in prison on fraud charges), but he’s also been hosting a morning show on FS1 since last year. That led to a tough daily schedule for Carton, and to reports that Fox might be willing to pay him more to work exclusively for them. And that’s now come to pass, as Marchand reported Thursday:
🚨NEWS: Craig Carton is leaving WFAN, The Post has learned.https://t.co/j3K83LfX7I
— Andrew Marchand (@AndrewMarchand) June 15, 2023
As per Marchand’s piece, Carton (seen at left above in 2022) is set to leave WFAN in a couple of weeks. But maybe what’s most interesting there are the candidates floated to replace him alongside Roberts. Perhaps especially actor Jerry Ferrara, most known for his 2004-2011 run as Salvatore “Turtle” Assante on Entourage:
Roberts will remain on the show and is likely to take Carton’s place as the driver of the program.
Internally, Tiki Barber is the leading candidate while, externally, Jerry Ferrara is someone WFAN will consider, according to sources.
Barber, the former Giants great, currently co-hosts WFAN’s mid-morning show, “Tiki & Tierney.” Ferrara, who is from Bensonhurst, played Turtle on the HBO series “Entourage.”
Ferrara has been serving as a brand ambassador and hosting a sports betting podcast for BetMGM (with Westwood One’s Olivia Harlan Dekker) since last summer, although its latest episode came in February. He has also been on WFAN before, guest-hosting alongside Roberts at one point earlier this year:
So there’s some potential logic to that. And yes, Ferrara has acted in many projects beyond Entourage, including Power and Shooter. (He’s repeatedly talked about how much Entourage meant for his career, though, including with Jalen Rose last fall.) But it’s still somewhat odd to consider the idea of the guy most known for playing Turtle as a regular drive-time sports radio host.
[The New York Post: photo of Carton from Seth Harrison/The (Westchester County) Journal News, via USA Today Sports, photo of Ferrara from Entourage.Fandom.com.]
