Peter Ackerman, Asbury Park Press via Imagn Content Services, LLC
Famed New York City radio sports talk host Mike Francesa was caught on a hot mic berating his staff over a minor error. The moment instantly went viral, with Francesa even realizing in realtime that it would gain traction on social media.
Mike Francesa’s latest viral outburst came as the longtime radio host was discussing Rick Pitino and and St. John’s winning the Big East. Apparently, someone speaking into Francesa’s headset accidentally stated that the Johnnies won the Big East via their conference-best record.
This set off Francesa, who began to rant about the Big East champion being crowned via the tournament. St. John’s ultimately did win the Big East tournament the night after Francesa’s rant, beating the 2nd-seeded Creighton Bluejays by a score of 82-66.
Francesa now hosts a podcast sponsored by BetRivers casino that’s streamed live on YouTube. However, Francesa was apparently unaware that he was live on-air at the time of the staff berating.
“Who’s correcting me? Who was that? Who said that? Who was talking to me? What were you guys talking about? Because I heard it in my headset. I thought you were talking to me,” Francesa said during the Friday, March 14 show.
“They have not won the title yet. You win the title tomorrow night. The championship trophy goes with tomorrow night’s winner. It does not go with the regular season champion. It can’t, because then why the hell would you have the tournament? So, you’re wrong about that. The title goes to who wins tomorrow.”
Mike Francesa yelled at his staff for a few minutes last night, not realizing he was live. 😄 pic.twitter.com/FVSSch13pt
— Funhouse (@BackAftaThis) March 15, 2025
The true punchline of the incident, however, came when Francesa finally realized he was on the air, undressing his staff in front of the public.
“We’re live? This was all on the air, me just yelling at you guys?” he asked with surprise. “What? You gotta be kidding me. You guys have got to be kidding me. All right, I apologize for that outburst, okay, folks? I didn’t realize we were live, I thought we were taping this, okay? That’s my mistake, I didn’t realize that. Now … so this is going to go viral now because I yelled at you guys, you realize that?”
Beloved New York Mets radio announcer and fellow longtime New York City sports voice Howie Rose weighed in on the moment and defended Francesa.
“Anybody who thinks Mike was out of line here must have an agenda or a vendetta. If you ask me that was about as gentle an admonishment as you can give under the circumstances. He was totally calm, in control and not at all disrespectful. Come on,” Rose tweeted.
Francesa, 70 years old, has been in sports radio since the 1980s, with his heyday coming in the 90s and early 2000s thanks to his famed radio show Mike and the Mad Dog on NYC’s WFAN alongside Chris ‘Mad Dog’ Russo, who now makes regular appearances on First Take.