Little new ground was broken at ESPN’s upfronts on Tuesday, but a few musty old rumors were finally confirmed.
ESPN officially announced Tuesday that Mike Greenberg will host a new daily morning show on the flagship network. The as-yet-untitled show, news of which was first reported by Sports Illustrated last September, will debut in January and feature Greenberg and several co-hosts in a Manhattan studio.
It will air from 7-10 AM ET, replacing SportsCenter: AM, and re-air from 10-1 PM on ESPN2, replacing several other editions of SportsCenter. Former Around the Horn producer and ‘disembodied voice’ Bill Wolff, who left ESPN with Max Kellerman in 2004 but recently returned to the company, will oversee the show.
With Greenberg getting his own new show, his longtime Mike and Mike in the Morning co-host Mike Golic will now partner with Trey Wingo. The pair, who have both been signed to new contracts, will occupy the same 6-10 AM ET time slot as Mike and Mike, with simulcast coverage dropping down the dial from ESPN2 to ESPNU.
Also announced Tuesday was a new show hosted by Bomani Jones and Pablo S. Torre that will begin airing on ESPN in January. The live, one-hour show will air weekdays at Noon ET. Like the Greenberg show, the Jones and Torre hour has been an open secret for months, first reported by Sporting News last October.
The new shows will all-but-end ESPN’s block of live, morning editions of SportsCenter that began in 2008. SportsCenter will still air live on ESPN2 from 7-10 AM, but the 10-1 PM block — currently consisting of a Hannah Storm-hosted hour and a bicoastal edition with David Lloyd and Cari Champion — will be no more. ESPN will begin producing an hourly SportsCenter update in August that will run from 7 AM-3 PM each day, so the show will still maintain a daytime presence.
(Tue. news from ESPN Media Zone 5.16)
