Mike Golic and Mike Golic Jr. weren’t sports media free agents for long.
The father-son duo and ex-ESPNers were shopping their GoJo and Golic show after DraftKings opted not to renew their contracts. As DraftKings pivots from in-house content, what’s one gambling company’s loss has become another’s gain. According to The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand, the Golics will reunite with Norby Williamson at FanDuel Sports Network.
Earlier this year, Golic told Barrett Media that DraftKings informed them it was discontinuing all internally produced shows, including theirs. The show’s original version is now defunct, but it will be revived at FanDuel under a new name: Golic & Golic.
Per Marchand, Golic & Golic will air weekdays from 4–6 p.m. ET as the lead-in to FanDuel’s slate of regional games. The show will be available across all of the network’s direct-to-consumer platforms and is expected to debut in June.
The move to FanDuel might seem like just another media stop for the Golics, but it’s more than that, at least to Mike Sr.
For the elder Golic, working alongside his son has been the most fulfilling chapter of his broadcasting career.
“I’ve been doing this for a long time, but I have had no more joy than to do it with my son,” Golic Sr. told The Athletic. “What I’ve always talked about doing TV and radio, it’s conversing with people, not ‘at people.’ So you equate it to sitting at a bar and having a conversation. For the last three years, at ESPN and a couple of years at the last gig, I’ve had the chance to sit at the bar with my son and just talk sports.”
“It’s a great team and pool for us to draw from in terms of resources,” Golic Jr. added.
That team includes some familiar faces, including former ESPN executive Norby Williamson. Awful Announcing first reported that Williamson would head to Main Street Sports Group to oversee FanDuel Sports Network’s production. That’ll now include a show fronted by some of ESPN’s most recognizable former talent.
“The wild thing again is: Mike worked for Norby,” Golic Sr. told Marchand. “But I worked with him for a long time. It’s just a wild thing to have paths cross yet again.”