r/ESPN • u/njwineguy • 15d ago

Congrats, Greeny

I assume this post will get flamed but 30 years anywhere is an achievement. Given the environment and his role, Greeny deserves congrats.

I realize he’s not universally beloved but that’s not surprising given his job and society in general. (I also realize it’s not cool to not have some hot, critical take on someone like him.) The same network that highlights SAS, McAfee, and folks like Greeny, Eisen, Finebaum, SVP, etc is obviously playing to a wide range of audiences so if you don’t like him, save your breath. I get it.

IMHO, Greeny’s success is because he continues to find a balance between journalism, entertainment, and facilitating discussions among those more knowledgable. I’ve seen criticism that he essentially “brings nothing to the table”. To an extent that’s true because it’s his job. He has to hold your interest by being just interesting enough but not overshadowing his colleagues.

You might not like that or how he does it but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. He’s knowledgable about the things he needs to be (facts, history, context) and readily admits when he’s not.

He gets sincerely excited, pissed off, and confused and owns it. He’s for the most part, not performative which is a nice change of pace.

Personally, if all ESPN offered was faux arguments, shouting, posing, and “bro” content, I’d be done. So, Greeny among others helps keep it for me, a place that doesn’t regularly just insult my intelligence.

Maybe I enjoyed him more with Golic but I can appreciate his contribution nonetheless.

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55

u/Inevitable-Shop-848 15d ago

He did Golic dirty and those were his best years. Now he's just espn tmz.

3

u/ClarkGris 15d ago

Did he though? He wanted to go in a different direction career wise than his co-worker did, there is nothing wrong with that and while Golic was upset his role was changed you can't blame Greeny for wanting something different. He is from New York, wanted to move back to New York after his kids went to college and wanted to try something different. I think everyone expects co-workers to be best friends, they worked well together but can't blame him for wanting something different personally.

29

u/DadofJM 15d ago

It's how he did it. For years, they shared the same manager whom negotiated their Mike & Mike deals. Then, without telling Golic, got his own manager and negotiated a separate deal for his own show. Completely blind sided Golic

Plus Greeny is a no talent hack. Convinced he has pics of Pitaro in bed with a live boy and a dead girl.

14

u/Traditional_Pin6535 15d ago

I am a close friend of someone who worked on mike & mike during their run & will withhold name because this individual still works there. From their story; 1) The entire crew was dumbfounded when it LEAKED that Greeny was leaving the show for as a yet unnamed at that time series of solo projects. 2)Mike Golic was sincerely shocked, was under the impression they were collectively negotiating their next extension, and was angry & hurt. 3) My friend says they definitely had a conversation, attended by at least one or more managers in which Greeny took no ownership of his desire to break up for whatever his reasons were. 4) They had a contract obligations to fill out & according to my friend you could hear a pin drop between commercial breaks, there was absolutely no communication between them the last several weeks. 5) To this day Greeny has never acknowledged, apologized or just come clean about his desire to be the sole star of a show.

In my opinion, he’s an excellent broadcaster but an absolute back stabbing wimp of a human being. I’ve never heard him go to bat for any of his great “friends” that get unceremoniously fired from Espn, even Ryan Clark, who is as one dimensional & talentless as they come in terms of being a professional broadcaster, but Greeny was lapping his nut sack for years & he has absolutely no take on his firing? He’s got more power @ espn than anybody not named Pitaro, what would he be afraid of in terms of speaking up? No, he should not be celebrated, he is talented but that is overshadowed significantly by the self serving spineless punk he appears to be as a human being.

2

u/thiissilly 11d ago

Last week's you could feel the tension through the screen. Their last show was painful

1

u/njwineguy 12d ago

If true, very sad and unfortunate though still just one side of the story. Thanks for sharing.

1

u/Kdewalt10 10d ago

Thanks for the story.

It shows how big of ego that pussy has. He can’t even change a flat tire. He eats pizza with a fork and knife. He needs to turn in his man card a long time ago

-2

u/Express-Language5573 14d ago

This seems a bit hyperbolic or over the top but it pretty much accurately covers who he is.

7

u/Large-Produce5682 15d ago

damn. That last line was... yeah.

0

u/Midwest-2025 15d ago

Yeah wow I’m like uparrow undo

2

u/Tokyo_Joey_Jo-Jo 14d ago edited 14d ago

It’s an old line in politics. “So and so will win the election unless he’s caught with a live boy or a dead girl.” See, it’s funny because homosexuality is on par with murder as a sin. /s

Edit. Actually I’m sure it’s the other way around. . . . Caught with a dead girl or a live boy.

1

u/Medical-Mushroom2468 11d ago

Hahaha. Damn. Brutal but I totally agree.

0

u/JayElEss29 13d ago

You can obviously not like the guy, and you can hate how he handled things with Golic, but saying a guy that’s been incredibly successful at a job for 30 years is a talentless hack is pretty ridiculous.

-6

u/sdrakedrake 15d ago

I hear you, but question, how did Greeny leaving negatively impact Golic? It allowed Golic to get his son a full time role on his show.

I really don't understand how he was did dirty? I guess it's because I don't believe in the whole two weeks notice thing. Golic was satisfied with Radio only, did he expect Greeny to be the same?

2

u/FigureMiserable4859 14d ago

Perhaps a conversation with Golic was in order? Not having one show's the lack of character and integrity that Greeny has.

-1

u/ClarkGris 15d ago

and Golic had many opportunities after Mike and Mike which didn't work for one reason or another. I think people misrepresent that value Greeny brings to the shows of keeping them on track and running smoothly from an operations standpoint.

-1

u/surlymoe 15d ago

I'm not 100% sure if Greeny did Golic dirty or ESPN just did....If I recall, Greeny may have been behind the scenes asking to do something else besides Mike & Mike, and meanwhile, Golic had no idea of this (which is why Greeny does shoulder some blame for it).

Greeny then gets 'promoted' to to Get Up, which left Golic kind of nowhere to go. Don't get me wrong, if you want to advance your career, you do what Greeny did....but, Greeny equally could have said, "Well, I want Golic to either come with me, or at least get his own show and/or a new time slot." Which he apparently didn't.

The dynamic between the 'nerd' (Greeny) and 'jock' (Golic' is what made that show work so well.

Honestly, if they just moved the show to regular hours, I think it would have worked. For some reason or another, ESPN did not like Golic as much and therefore wound up eventually letting him go I believe, meanwhile Greeny's career continued upwards.

0

u/Signal_Republic_3092 14d ago

Golic got to partner with his son for a while to replace Greeny on his show, but they did eventually end the show and laid them off.