Don La Greca is Putting His Faith in the Audience to Find ‘The Michael Kay Show’ on ESPN New York (2024)

When a visitor travels to New York City, the presence of sports is undeniable. There are connections to the games virtually everywhere in the five boroughs, including within Central Park, Times Square and Grand Central Terminal, locations that are synonymous with the effervescent and pulse of the bustling locale. Whenever he is on the air in his home city, Don La Greca pulls no punches. He seeks to convey his passion and appreciation for the metropolis by always being genuine with his audience and seldom timid with what he has to say.

One day when La Greca was in St. Louis to call a matchup between the New York Rangers and St. Louis Blues, he observed the rubicund complexion of the city. Concurrent with the St. Louis Cardinals’ appearance in the World Series, the water in the Kiener Plaza fountain was dyed red. Baseball overshadowed hockey, a regular occurrence in the Gateway to the West, something that La Greca knows would never happen in “The Big Apple” due to the vested rooting interests of different fan bases in one city.

“There’s nine professional sports teams – and that’s not counting the soccer teams and the WNBA and all of that – and it always seems like something’s going on [and] there’s so many different directions to go into,” La Greca said. “That just makes New York so special.”

One of the most difficult parts of preparing for an episode of The Michael Kay Show on ESPN New York is trying to determine the best opening topic that will appeal to the audience. On top of that, the program is simulcast to viewers on YES Network and remains a fixture in afternoon drive across multiple platforms. The show has been on the air for over 21 years on ESPN New York, with La Greca’s voice being the first heard on the station when it broadcast on the airwaves on 1050 AM. That has led to a run that he didn’t foresee taking place two decades ago.

Over the last several years, there have been various changes associated with ESPN Radio as a whole. Good Karma Brands purchased the 1050 AM frequency as part of a larger deal with ESPN for some of its local radio properties, and the outlet has been operating 98.7 ESPN under a local marketing agreement (LMA) between ESPN and Emmis Communications. The management structure of the outlet has changed due to these transactions, which was headlined by the departure of longtime station general manager Tim McCarthy.

“We’re not all together like we were before [the pandemic] where I can just walk down the hall and see my boss and see everybody together,” La Greca said, “so there’s that little kind of separation anxiety there, but the connection that I feel – I’ll see them at the suite at [Madison Square] Garden when I stop by – they’re good people; they’re so interested and invested in us doing well.”

Working in afternoon drive grants La Greca, along with co-hosts Michael Kay and Peter Rosenberg, the ability to react to breaking news and preview games that are set to take place that night. La Greca has worked in radio in parts of four decades and does not take his presence in a drive-time slot for granted, cherishing every day he is afforded the opportunity to go on the air.

“It’s where it’s all buzzing,” La Greca said. “I like afternoons better than mornings because I feel like mornings are more recapping the night before and having a little bit more fun; not as serious. I feel like afternoons is when things are happening.”

When the program first took the air in 2002, La Greca affirmed that he was told by ESPN New York management that he was going to be co-hosting with Kay. Conversely, he shared that Kay, the television play-by-play voice of the New York Yankees, was informed that La Greca was back at the ESPN New York studios to take over just in case his line dropped. After the first few days, La Greca became more confused and indignant towards the on-air arrangement before achieving clarity regarding the situation.

“We laughed later about the miscommunication or whatever, and then eventually I started doing updates on his show on a consistent basis,” La Greca said, “and he opened the door for me too because he didn’t have to talk to me; he didn’t have to bring me in. But it was the infancy of the radio station, so the calls weren’t hopping all the time, and he would ask me about this and that.”

As La Greca and Kay became more comfortable with one another, he eventually assumed responsibilities as a permanent co-host on the program. Even so, his name has never been included in the title of the show, something that does not affect his relationship with Kay. It does bother him when guests don’t realize the show includes more than just the eponymous co-host.

“Anybody that listens to the show knows what I do and how important my element is to the show, but it does bother me sometimes,” La Greca said. “We all have some sort of an ego where I wish there was a way that my name could be on the show, but at the end of the day it’s never been anything to make me want to leave or make any demands.”

Despite Kay and La Greca not being pleased with adding a third person to the show in 2015, management at ESPN New York informed them that it was going to happen either way. Early on, both co-hosts came to realize that Peter Rosenberg being included was a shrewd decision because of his versatile abilities and the elements he adds to the conversation. Rosenberg continues to co-host Ebro in the Morning on HOT 97 before appearing on The Michael Kay Show in afternoons, equating to seven-and-a-half hours on the air per day across the music and sports formats.

“We were able to build a nice rapport with each other, and I think Michael sensed that we were getting along and it just kind of came together so that when baseball season was over he was able to mesh,” La Greca said. “Michael works very well with people – you can tell with all the different analysts he has on television that he can work with anybody – so once he saw that we had built the chemistry, it was just easy for him to plug himself in.”

There are plenty of different sports to discuss during the course of the calendar year. Over the last decade though, professional football teams in the New York metropolitan area have largely struggled to compete for Super Bowl championships – let alone qualify for the playoffs.

“We kind of all just come to a common ground of what we think will kind of set the tone for the show and go from there,” La Greca said, “but if you look at it in the grand scheme of things, it just feels like any time you talk football, it’s the right direction to move because the phones light up [since] people just love the sport so much.”

La Greca is often associated with on-air rants; in fact, The Michael Kay Show once kept a counter marking the days without one of his verbal tirades. Whether it’s been comments made by Giants offensive tackle Evan Neal or Ed Kranepool being the “forever player” for the Mets, La Greca exhibits fervor and dedication towards the local teams. The rants serve as a visceral catharsis towards what he is feeling inside, and he is able to create a transformation for these sentiments into zealous vernacular for the topics at hand.

“When I rant, I feel like I’m being me,” La Greca said. “I’m giving my opinion on something, and I’m showing you exactly how I feel at that particular moment and I think the listener appreciates it.”

As a radio host, La Greca knows that he is unable to partake in what he refers to as “the game,” which involves instigating disagreement with his co-hosts related to certain topics. In ruminating on his place on the show, he tries to remain genuine to himself and the way he views sports. Exuding self-confidence and a dedication to honesty on the air, La Greca yearns to never waver from his approach and refrains from holding back.

“When people think that my rants are made-up, it bothers me because I lose control of myself,” La Greca said. “I’m like, ‘Geez, you think I’m making this up?’ I wish I had that kind of control because I can’t stop from just laying it all out there and just pouring my heart out in everything that I do.”

While The Michael Kay Show has a legion of loyal listeners and fans, the program has finished consistently behind WFAN in afternoons in the Nielsen ratings. La Greca and his colleagues currently go head-to-head with Evan Roberts and Tiki Barber, but previously competed against Craig Carton and Evan Roberts, and Mike Francesa prior to that. During his time at WFAN, Carton made it no secret that he took pleasure in beating ESPN New York, referring to the outlet as a joke that never took local radio seriously.

In viewing WFAN from afar, La Greca posits that the programs are being generated by the hosts’ interest in teams rather than discussing all the teams. Moreover, there have been instances in his opinion that reveal a deviation from what ESPN New York looks to accomplish within its programming.

“It feels like they’re going after it with the hanging up on Carl Banks and the morning show going after Gary Myers,” La Greca explained. “It just seems like they’re a little bit more aggressive, and if that works for them, that’s great.”

Before he joined ESPN New York, La Greca worked at WFAN where he provided overnight updates and occasionally contributed within dayparts. Being able to foster the tenacity to discuss sports on the air at such a young age came from always possessing an opinion. Although it bothered a lot of people when he was younger, his friends thought it was cool when he would become enraptured in mini-rants about different topics. For parts of 11 years, La Greca was employed at a pharmacy, which is where he learned of Art Rust Jr. and his sports talk show on ABC.

“I couldn’t believe there was somebody out there with a photographic memory who remembered all these things,” La Greca said. “I was like, ‘I could do that,’ and then the FAN came and it was like a dream come true.”

La Greca majored in communications at Ramapo College, taking six semesters to graduate because of his interminable commitment to the campus radio station. While he was an intern at KROCK, he met Maria Milito, a disk jockey who was married to Pete Walker, the owner of Phone Programs.

The connection helped him land a job with the company in New York City where he would place cassettes into a Marantz deck and load the program into another machine. After some time, La Greca moved to Sports Phone on Long Island where he worked as a supervisor, barely breaking even because of the funds he had to set aside for gas and tolls as part of his lengthy commute.

One day, he was betting on winning a football pool in order to make extra money but ended up losing, prompting him to go home and express his frustration by throwing things in his house. When his father discovered his son in an incensed state, he offered to help get him into the Public Service Enterprise Group, the company where he worked. That opportunity would start at $60,000 a year. La Greca realized then how hard he had been working to succeed in sports media and knew that he had to see his dream through, even if there were no guarantees.

“It wasn’t about the money,” La Greca said. “It was about just wanting to do what I wanted to do for a living, and so he understood that. He never bothered me again, and it really worked out.”

Following this epiphany, La Greca was introduced to Steve Malzberg, a talk show host at WABC. As it turns out, Malzberg was put in charge of hiring at Shadow Sports and helped catalyze La Greca being hired by 1010 WINS. People at WFAN heard him on the air at 1010 WINS and had him move to the all-sports outlet, but La Greca quickly realized that since the station was a desirable place to work, there was little movement. In the end, La Greca helped institute a new sports talk radio outlet upon Malzberg’s recommendation to ESPN management, and he has remained at ESPN New York ever since.

Come next August, ESPN New York will no longer broadcast on 98.7 FM. The station made a business decision, electing not to renew its lease. The Michael Kay Show, which first aired exclusively on 1050 AM, will return to its original radio home, in addition to being accessible through ESPN New York’s app, the YES Network, and other multimedia options. La Greca realizes that it will be strange, but hopes that people will continue to find the program as long as it provides content to suit people’s interests.

“It’s a different world, and I know AM’s a little different than it was back in the day but I also think streaming and podcasts and the app is way bigger than it was,” La Greca said, “so I have all the confidence in the world the audience will follow us wherever we go.”

While La Greca has cherished his time on the afternoon drive program – along with calling games across different sports on ESPN New York, hosting the Game Misconduct podcast and anchoring in-studio pregame and postgame shows – he desires to be a full-time play-by-play announcer, preferably for an NHL team in the New York metropolitan area. Leaving the city, he said, would not be an option unless the offer was very lucrative, prognosticating that he would spend every moment trying to return in that scenario. If the circ*mstances were right for him though, he would think about taking on the challenge since he feels he has reached his goal on sports talk radio.

“If I ever got offered a play-by-play gig and they said, ‘Listen, you couldn’t do The Michael Kay Show anymore,’ it’d be a tough decision but I think I would maybe move onto the play-by-play because that’s how much I love it and [would] be motivated by it,” La Greca said. “Hopefully I never have to make that decision.”