It’s “ovah” for Mike Francesa’s app.
The New York City sports radio icon said on Tuesday his “Mike’s On” app — which cost subscribers $8.99 per month to live stream his otherwise free radio show, among other features — will be closing down in October, after being purchased by Radio.com.
https://t.co/DPC5pzxj9G has purchased the Mike’sOn app (MikesOn LLC). Mike’sOn and all content will become part of https://t.co/DPC5pzxj9G on 10/1/2019. For Sept., the app is FREE to everyone. I thank all our subscribers for their tremendous support.
— Mike Francesa (@MikeFrancesa) September 3, 2019
In a separate blog post, Radio.com said all of Francesa’s podcasts and other branded media will move to the site’s own app, where it will be available for free.
The move comes about a year after Franceca launched the app. The “Sports Pope” almost immediately found himself defending the app’s expensive price tag, saying it was the only place fans could go for his immediate reaction to big games. It’s unclear how many users the app had, and subscriber growth was a touchy subject for Francesa. Last October he said the app had about 1,000 subscribers, and ripped into New York Post columnist Andrew Marchand for saying it was failing to attract users, calling him a “little weasel” and offering to bet him $10,000 for each subscriber they had above 800 people.
The app was routinely criticized for offering little more than the option to live-stream Francesa’s show on WFAN in New York City and the occasional exclusive broadcast. This did lead to some memorable run-ins with callers, though, including one that skewered Francesa for not having any hair gel in his hair:
https://twitter.com/BackAftaThis/status/1165099270451736576?s=20
For those diehard fans that were holding off on paying $8.99 per month, Francesa tweeted the app will be free for all of September before shuttering on Oct. 1.