“Golic & Wingo” didn’t take long to address the elephant in the room.
After “Mike & Mike,” the popular sports morning talk show hosted by Mike Golic and Mike Greenberg, ended its 18-year run last week, Golic and his new partner, Trey Wingo, had their first run on the air under the show’s re-brand Monday morning. And just as the pair hit the airwaves, they addressed the glaring difference to the set: no Greenberg.
“I think this was put best to me in starting a new show after 18 years of an old show was, as my wife said, ‘You have different classmates, you’re just repeating a grade,'” Golic said, flanked by his son, Mike Golic Jr.
Soon after, Wingo added his take on the new routine. After all, he’s the one replacing Greenberg, who left the syndicated show to start his own TV morning program with Michelle Beadle and Jalen Rose, which debuts April 2.
“We want to be clear about something: This is a different thing, this is a new experience, and we get it,” Wingo said. “We understand there was a great show that went on for many, many years. … We get it, it’s a little new, it’s a little different, and we understand, we’re sort of adjusting as well. We want you to know that we’re with you, we’re all on the same page here, and we’re going to try to do what you guys did for a lot of years.”
Wingo also tried adding a little flavor to the new show, noting (or joking?) the set has a “Mike & Mike” swear jar; if either host utters the name of the former talk show, they have to throw some money into the jar. Either way, Wingo isn’t exactly a new bird with Golic or the morning talk-show waves. He worked previously with Golic on “NFL Live” and over the past few months, he appeared frequently on “Mike & Mike,” which he described as a rehearsal to “help ease people along” to the new face and voice of ESPN radio.
“Two things: A) It’s probably not going to change much. But it’s probably going to change a lot,” Wingo told The Sporting News. “Really, there’s no way to sort of blow up (the show) and do a lot of different things. There’s going to be two guys. We’re going to be talking about the topics of the day. The one change? “Mike & Mike” morphed into a TV show that was on radio. We’re going to bring it back to a radio show that’s on TV.
“Instead of playing to the cameras, we’re essentially going to view the cameras like nanny-cams — just to make sure we don’t burn down the house, bring over too many guests and spray-paint the furniture. So we’re not going to be playing to the cameras as much as having real conversations with each other. That’s probably the biggest difference. Again, “Mike & Mike” have been radio gold forever. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. We’re not going to try and reinvent a wheel that doesn’t need a lot of reinventing, or clearly can’t be reinvented. There’s only so many things you can do.”