Michael Kay believes his afternoon ESPN Radio show was hurt by politics

As Michael Kay watches Stephen A. Smith venture further into the political spectrum, he can attest to that path coming with risk.

Kay joined Brandon Tierney’s BT Unleashed YouTube show this week for a wide-ranging interview. And when Tierney asked about Smith’s political interest, Kay said ESPN’s $100 million talent is “fraught with peril.”

“When our show in the afternoon took a downturn, it was right around Covid,” Kay said of The Michael Kay Show with Don La Greca and Peter Rosenberg. “And the three of us got very, very political. And people don’t like that, especially in talk radio. Peter is very, very liberal; he doesn’t hide it. And Don and I, at that time, leaned towards some liberal things, although I wouldn’t say we were liberal, and people got turned off. A lot of people that listen to talk radio are conservative men, and we lost a lot of people because we were going up against Carton at that time and he leans the other way. And I think that really hurt us a great deal.”

Kay has since parted ways with La Greca and Rosenberg, opting for a shorter solo radio show to lighten his workload as he continues to serve as the lead play-by-play voice of the New York Yankees on YES Network.

Tierney asked Kay if he ever advised Rosenberg to be less political during their tenure together. And while Kay didn’t acknowledge whether he ever made the suggestion himself, he claimed then-station general manager Tim McCarthy had those conversations with Rosenberg.

“Tim McCarthy really thought it was gonna hurt,” Kay recalled. “And for the most part, people look at Peter, and they don’t like Peter because they might be on the other side of the political spectrum, and Peter is very, very, very, very liberal.”

Kay claimed McCarthy kept urging Rosenberg to stay away from political conversations or opinions on their ESPN New York afternoon radio show. And for the most part, Rosenberg did.

“But it’s hard to separate the personality on the air and the guy that’s on Twitter, because he also does a morning (Hot 97) show with Ebro, and on that, he’s very, very open about which way he leans,” Kay explained of Rosenberg. “So, he might not talk about it on the sports talk show, but everybody knows which way he leans. But for a long time there, we got away from it, and we got a lot of the audience back. But some of them never forgot.”

The Michael Kay Show reached a point where it was beating WFAN’s afternoon show in ratings consistently in 2019 and early 2020. But when Craig Carton returned for his first tenure in afternoons, which occurred during the height of COVID-19, WFAN regained the lead and hasn’t looked and hasn’t looked back aside from one loss in the fall of 2021.

Whatever listeners The Michael Show may have lost because of Rosenberg’s political leanings at any point during his tenure in afternoons on ESPN New York, it’s fair to argue he made up for it with gains by reaching a new audience. Rosenberg’s addition to The Michael Kay Show remains about as important to its history as when they replaced Mike Francesa on YES Network.