South Beach celebrity Jon “Stugotz” Weiner is doing what LeBron James should have done 13 years ago and taking his talents to New York.
Friday morning, Gregg Giannotti noted his WFAN co-host Boomer Esiason is on vacation next week, revealing The Dan Le Batard Show’s Stugotz will be filling in for two days.
“Stugotz, Jon Weiner from Dan Le Batard is gonna hang out Thursday and Friday, “Giannotti said. “He’s a New Yorker, he loves WFAN, he loves us, he wishes you were here too, he’s always been begging to come in with the both of us and I said, ‘It’s not gonna happen with the way that you suck the oxygen out of the room.’ I said, maybe when one of us is off, so he’s gonna come in Thursday and Friday.”
While Stugotz works on a show that relishes the opportunity to mock traditional sports radio, Le Batard’s sidekick should fit seamlessly alongside Giannotti on the most renowned sports radio station in the country. Stugotz doesn’t have to prepare, study, watch every inning of every game or even know what Aaron Rodgers looks like to work with Giannotti because WFAN’s morning show prides their ability to entertain the masses without talking much sports.
Stugotz, who grew up listening to WFAN, has long been interested in the possibility of working at the New York sports radio station. Two years ago, he was planning to join Giannotti on WFAN for a couple of shows when Esiason was on vacation, but it never fully materialized. And more recently, Stugotz’s eyes widened when he learned Craig Carton was creating a job opening at the station.
“That Stugotz is always sniffing around here when things are open,” Giannotti claimed earlier this month. “The day the newspaper article came out with Craig leaving, I got a text message from Stugotz asking if I was close with Chris Oliviero… Stugotz also said, because they cut a big deal over there with Meadowlark Media and he’s making a lot of money, that he would have worked here for free.”
Does Le Batard know Stugotz is interested in taking his Meadowlark money to New York so he can work for free at WFAN? Oliviero is the market president of Audacy’s eight-station cluster in New York which includes WFAN. We don’t know if Stugotz ever had a conversation with Oliviero about replacing Carton, the station architect probably already had a replacement plan sketched out by the time Stugotz saw the newspaper article announcing Carton’s departure. But considering Audacy’s continuously plummeting financials, a “work for free” offer might have been tough to pass up.
[WFAN]
