Either Mike Tirico is very busy in Paris, or he’s not too thrilled with SiriusXM host Chris Russo (or perhaps both).
Russo, known as “Mad Dog,” said this week that he had an interview lined up with NBC’s Olympics host, but got ghosted by both the network and Tirico himself.
The former New York radio icon says he feels that it was because of a joke he cracked about NBC and the Games.
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Chris “Mad Dog” Russo, left, says Mike Tirico and NBC ghosted him after he cracked a joke about the Olympics’ opening ceremony. (Getty Images)
Last week on ESPN’s “First Take,” in a segment titled “What Are You Mad About,” Russo cracked a joke about the Olympics broadcasting its opening ceremony in Imax theaters for $20.
“I’m taking Stephen A. [Smith] on a date,” Russo said to begin a nearly two-minute diatribe. “I’m gonna take him to an Imax theater, put down $40 to see the stupid Olympic parade in Paris. Do you see what NBC is doing?!”
But after the joke, that’s apparently when the other side went radio silent.
“To make a long story short, I texted [my producer] Eddie Wednesday. I said, ‘Eddie, what’s the story here? Did we hear from Tirico?’ And he said, ‘No, not yet.’”
SiriusXM’s Chris “Mad Dog” Russo appears at Super Bowl LVIII in Las Vegas on Feb. 7. (Cindy Ord/Getty Images for SiriusXM)
Russo then said he hadn’t heard anything from NBC on Thursday or Friday, and then took it upon himself to text Tirico himself.
“I said, ‘Mike, what’s going on here?'” Russo said. He still received no answer.
“You mean to tell me that ‘What I’m mad about’ has got that power? That somehow, someway, 4,000 miles across the ocean, they heard me kill the Imax thing and decided not to put Tirico on?” asked Russo.
The Olympics has come under fire for a boxing controversy that reached new heights early Thursday morning, after a female boxer forfeited mid-match against another fighter who was deemed to have XY chromosomes.
The opening ceremony further caught flak for including what appeared to be a mock “Last Supper,” a headless Marie Antoinette and a ménage à trois.
Sportscaster Mike Tirico hosts the Golden Goggle Awards at Faena Forum Miami Beach in Miami Beach, Florida, on Dec. 7, 2021. (Michael Reaves/Getty Images)
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Tirico became the host of the Olympics in 2018 following Bob Costas’ retirement from coverage.
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