New York’s sports scene has been marred in disappointment for an extended period. Though underperforming teams provide fodder for sports media, the constant negativity grows stale.
On the SI Media podcast, Gregg Giannotti discussed the increasing challenges of being a New York sports fan. There, he emphasized the collective struggles of his beloved teams.
Giannotti shared with Jimmy Traina that his morning show with Boomer Esiason — Boomer & Gio — has taken off because the teams in the surrounding area have been “terrible.”
“You can’t talk bad football, bad baseball, bad basketball every single day. It’s sickening.”
New York’s sporting landscape presents a mixed bag. The Jets stand alone in their dysfunction, holding the dubious honor of the longest playoff drought in North American professional sports. While boasting multiple Super Bowl trophies this century, the Giants have yet to replicate that success in recent years and are searching for direction.
Despite their storied pasts, the Mets and Yankees stumbled short of the playoffs last season. However, a glimmer of hope emerges with the Knicks, a once-proud franchise that endured a period of despair but now finds itself in contention for a championship.
While Traina believes that the negativity can be good — for ratings — Giannotti said it doesn’t last very long. He offered a prime example, highlighting 2007. While the Giants celebrated a Super Bowl victory that year, the Mets endured a historic collapse. Despite holding a commanding seven-game lead in the division on Sept. 12, they stumbled, losing 12 of their final 17 games and failing to reach the playoffs.
Giannotti, channeling his inner Mike Francesa, perfectly captured “The Sports Pope’s” way of analyzing the situation. He claimed that Francesa labeled the Giants’ Super Bowl win a “9” and the Mets’ collapse a resounding “10” on a scale of how good it was for WFAN’s ratings.
“And that was true, at that point, but here’s the problem we’ve had a lot, especially in New York football,” said Giannotti. “Like, the negativity is there, but then the organization becomes irrelevant. So when you get to Septemeber, alright, they’re 0-4, or they’re 1-5 in October, everybody’s pissed, and they can’t believe they’re doing this. But then they’re playing these games in December that nobody cares about.
“And you think about the Mets last year, alright? People were angry about what was going on, but they were dead in July. So, then you got July, August, September, and the beginning of October, and they’re dead.
“Then you got no playoff baseball at all. The Yankees, too, were the least interesting season they had in a very long time. So, yes, negativity in the sense that a team that’s got high expectations but falls short does usually play, and there are a lot of angrier people.
“But I also wouldn’t mistake the angry callers and passionate hosts for great listenership. Because I know at least when I was a listener, I didn’t like putting on those because I could vent or I wanted to get away from it.
“I really do believe that it’s quieter. You don’t get as many phone calls, and you don’t get as many people screaming, but people love it when their team wins. They get in the car; they put it on. I want to hear people talking about it because it makes me happy. And we haven’t had a lot of that in a very long time.
While Giannotti acknowledges radio’s power for capturing the immediate emotional intensity of a bad call or playoff loss, he emphasizes that this appeal fades quickly.
“They both can play. But I can tell you from my seat, having some of these seasons that the teams are just nothing by the end of it, and you’re waiting for the offseason. It’s just miserable to be irrelevant in New York City,” he added.
