Mike Francesa answered quickly and without a second thought.
“Yes,” the sports talk radio icon said Friday night when asked if he could imagine a reimagining of Mike and the Mad Dog.
During an on-stage interview with Francesa and Chris “Mad Dog” Russo, the WFAN host stoked the dream of longtime fans of the duo. Russo has been campaigning for Francesa to join him at SiriusXM, and recently proposed a vague, once-a-week partnership for the two once Francesa leaves his midday show on Dec. 15.
Francesa repeatedly has said he doesn’t know what his next step will entail, but has maintained he will not retire following 30 years atop the perch at WFAN. For the first time, he offered a window into what could come next, and that peek could include Russo, with whom he already is eternally linked.
“I think it’s possible,” Francesa said at the Tribeca Film Festival, where ESPN’s documentary on Mike and the Mad Dog premiered. “I really do.
“I don’t know what, when I leave in December — yes, I’m leaving,” Francesa tried to confirm as Russo razzed him. “I’m doing all the stuff now, I’d look pretty dumb if I didn’t leave.
“So, yes, Dec. 15, it’s 30 years, it’s a good time to leave. There’s nothing else to do there that I haven’t done. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’m going to do something.”
He hinted in February that he may go a route that isn’t “conventional” when he steps away. But he has insisted that he’ll be heard, somewhere, beginning Jan. 3, 2018.
“It’s been brought up a lot since Radio City,” Francesa said about a reunion. “To be honest with you, I don’t know what’s going to happen, in all seriousness. But if something was brought up about Mike and the Mad Dog or Mike and the Mad Dog 2.0, I think it’d be fun, I really do.”