It looks like Chris “Mad Dog” Russo will be staying with SiriusXM a while longer. SiriusXM announced Tuesday that the 59-year-old Russo, who left Mike and the Mad Dog on WFAN to launch the Mad Dog Sports Radio channel for Sirius in 2008, will be sticking around with them for at least another four years.
Here’s more from their release:
Christopher “Mad Dog” Russo, one of sports media’s biggest personalities, has signed a new four-year contract to keep his unique brand of sports talk radio exclusively on SiriusXM.
Russo will continue to host his daily all-sports show, Mad Dog Unleashed, every weekday (3:00 – 6:00 pm ET) on the channel that Russo launched on SiriusXM in 2008 – Mad Dog Sports Radio.
…“Oh baby! Four more years, and I couldn’t be happier!” said Russo. “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. There’s no place, NO PLACE, better than SiriusXM to do the kind of show I want to do, with the freedom to talk about the topics that I want to cover and the listeners want to talk about. Now we’ll be reaching more fans than ever on SiriusXM and Pandora.”
“Chris is a singular talent at the top of his game and we are thrilled and very proud to tell our subscribers that SiriusXM will be Chris’ radio home for years to come,” said Scott Greenstein, SiriusXM’s President and Chief Content Officer. “He’ll continue to headline Mad Dog Sports Radio on SiriusXM, which is the best all-sports talk radio channel in the country, and now with a sampling of his show available as a podcast on Pandora, more people than ever get access to the legendary Mad Dog in action.”
The Pandora reference in there is thanks to Russo’s show being one of the SiriusXM shows available in podcast form on that service, with the Mad Dog Unleashed podcast featuring “select content from Russo’s show, including monologues and interviews.”
Meanwhile, it’s notable overall that Russo is sticking with Sirius for his radio show (he also continues to host High Heat With Christopher Russo weekdays on MLB Network); there had been some talk in 2017 about him potentially reuniting with former Mike and the Mad Dog partner Mike Francesa on a more permanent basis if the two could find the “right forum and price,” but with Francesa returning to WFAN last year and Russo calling him a “horse’s fanny” for doing so, that idea seemed to have fallen off a bit. Francesa’s future still seems a little up in the air (he hasn’t signed a long-term contract, you know), but Russo agreeing to another four-year deal with Sirius makes the prospect of a regular reunion appear even less likely.
As for Mad Dog Sports Radio in general, they also signed morning host Adam Schein to a new four-year deal last month. Here’s their full current lineup:
- Morning Men with Evan Cohen and Mike Babchik (6:00-10:00 am ET)
- Schein on Sports with Adam Schein (10:00 am-1:00 pm ET)
- Dog Day Sports with Steve Torre and Danny Kanell (1:00 – 3:00 pm ET)
- Mad Dog Unleashed with Christopher Russo (3:00 – 6:00 pm ET)
- What’s Wright with Nick Wright (6:00 – 8:00 pm ET)
- The Rap with Patrick Meagher (8:00 pm – 11:00 pm ET)
- Night Cap with Scott Wetzel (11:00 pm – midnight ET)
With their titular Mad Dog around for a few more years, SiriusXM now has one less thing to worry about with their Mad Dog Sports Radio channel.
