Longtime radio broadcaster Mike Golic certainly hasn’t been shy talking about his time at ESPN, how it ended, the fallout with his former cohost, and what he wished might have happened. So anytime he gets back behind a microphone or on a call, there’s always the potential to learn more about what went down and what might still be in store for the former host of “Mike & Mike” and “Golic & Wingo,” aside from a bunch of college football broadcasts.
Golic recently sat down with Brian Noe at Barrett Media to discuss what’s next and what’s potentially next after that.
When it comes to the thing he wants to accomplish at least once more, the Notre Dame grad certainly would love another shot in the booth for a Fightin’ Irish football game. The big issue would be whether or not NBC would want to put a “homer” in the booth.
“For whatever reason, they don’t want an ND grad in the booth,” said Golic. “They probably feel they’ll be a homer. Maybe. I guess. I’ve done Notre Dame games in the past for ESPN and I would have no problem not being a homer.”
“Listen I love Notre Dame. I want Notre Dame to win all of their games, but I called one last year when they played at Georgia Tech. I called one when they played Air Force years ago. I had no problem doing that. But it’s not my rule. I don’t know how much of a hard, fast rule it is for them, but I know that has been something they have somewhat lived by.”
“We’ve had Boston College guys in there in Flutie, and Tony Dungy in there, and now a Purdue guy in Drew Brees. I’m like wait a minute, man, I’m a Domer. Let’s get a Domer in there a little bit. But I don’t get to make those decisions because I would love to do that, sure.”
Having someone in the booth associated with the team isn’t always perceived as a good thing by national audiences, but it’s also a tactic that has been deployed by ESPN and many other broadcasters. As NBC experiments with Notre Dame broadcasts by moving some to Peacock, they might also one day be open to something like a special broadcast just including Irish alums. That might be Golic’s best shot at calling a Notre Dame game for NBC, homer or not.
In the meantime, when it comes to what’s actually next for Golic, he has a very specific idea in mind for what he’d love to be doing.
“The script for me for the next five years would at the very least, at the very least, do college games and pro games,” said Golic. “It would be calling games for sure.”
He did tell Barrett that if a radio show opportunity or podcast opportunity came up and it made sense, he’d consider it. He also alluded to a “travel type of thing” that is in discussions but hasn’t been “inked” yet. One thing he doesn’t seem to see himself ever doing again is local radio or broadcast.
“When I was doing local in Phoenix, you’ve got to dive deep into the local teams in the community, where national you’re hitting more of the bigger stories and not diving as deep,” said Golic. “Local is a lot more in-depth. If I were ever to do local, I would need to live there. I couldn’t imagine living somewhere else and doing local in the city I wasn’t in to sort of feel that city. So I doubt it.”
You can read the full interview here.
[Barrett]
