Damon Amendolara is leaving his morning show at SiriusXM’s Mad Dog Sports Radio, less than a year after signing an extension to stay.
According to Barrett Media, Amendolara is exiting D.A. & Babchik, the show he’s co-hosted with Mike Babchik since 2023, effective immediately. He’ll keep hosting The SiriusXM NFL Tailgate Show on NFL Radio through the football season, and SiriusXM plans to announce a new weekday morning lineup Monday, with the changes taking effect after Labor Day.
“There are changes coming to Mad Dog Sports Radio,” he told listeners. “Unfortunately, I will not be part of the channel after those changes.”
He added that Chris “Mad Dog” Russo, the channel’s namesake, would reveal the specifics as soon as Monday.
Amendolara joined Mad Dog Sports Radio’s morning show alongside co-host Mike Babchik in 2023 as part of a shakeup that saw Evan Cohen depart SiriusXM for ESPN Radio. Prior to the move, Amendolara spent a decade with Audacy’s CBS Sports Radio, later rebranded as Infinity Sports Network before it shut down at the end of last year. Most of that tenure was spent in morning drive on The DA Show with current WFAN afternoon contributor Shaun Morash. The move surprised plenty of people given the audience he’d built at CBS, but he told the Awful Announcing Podcast at the time that he saw the jump from terrestrial to satellite radio as a chance to reach a new audience rather than a step down from the one he already had.
Without a new contract this time, Amendolara is the one left figuring out how to connect that old audience with whatever comes next.
“Do not feel bad for me,” he said. “I have lived an incredibly charmed life. I’ve been on both sides of this equation. I have replaced others. I’ve been part of new shows. I’ve had an incredible run of good fortune over 25 years in the business.”
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.