This morning (Nov. 17) ESPN morning sports talk show Mike & Mike ended its run after nearly 18 years on the air. The weekday morning show hosted by Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic debuted on ESPN Radio in 2000 and has been simulcasted on ESPN2 since 2006.

Both Greenberg and Golic will remain at ESPN; Golic will team with sports personality Trey Wingo on a new ESPN Radio morning sports talk show, Golic and Wingo, debuting Nov. 27, while Greenberg will launch a new monring sports talk series beginning April 3 with co-hosts Michelle Beadle and Jalen Rose.

In the months leading up to the show's finale, I had a chance to speak to Mike Greenberg (pictured left) about Mike & Mike’s long run and how the sports talk genre has evolved since the series first debuted.  

TU: Is the end of Mike & Mike bittersweet for you?

Mike Greenberg: Absolutely, my relationship and partnership with Mike Golic was the best thing that ever happened to me in my professional life by far. At the same time I’m excited about new opportunities. [ESPN] came to me and said we have a vision for something new we want to do in the morning, and the more I listened to it the more I thought that it sounded like something that could be spectacular.

One final sign-off. pic.twitter.com/Y6p0RTmZWR

— ESPN (@espn) November 17, 2017

TU: How has the sports talk genre evolved over the years since Mike & Mike launched?

MG: What has happened is the Greek chorus that is our conversation has become very engrained into the process. Certainly since we started at Mike & Mike I’ve seen that grow and become more cemented. I think [sports talk] is part of the big sports picture, but clearly at that heart of it all are the games and the athletes. Our job is just to try and be the most interesting decoration around them that we can.

TU: What is your most memorable moment on Mike & Mike?

MG: It’s so hard to say. If I had to pick one its when I danced with Anna Trebunskaya from Dancing With the Stars coming off a wager, because that was really nerve-racking. I thought it turned out well … I’m not a dancer by any means, but I thought that I had acquitted myself well. There are really too many [moments] to count, but that’s one that jumps to mind.

TU: What will viewers expect to see from your new show?

MG: We’re still in the process of putting that together, but the key word is that it has to be flexible, so on days where there are big stories, we have to cover the news the way SportsCenter always has. At all times we have to bring the analysis, insight, debate and hopefully the humor that we have had on Mike & Mike and some of the studio shows at ESPN for years.

ESPN will shake up its weekday schedule beginning next year, highlighted by a new series featuring Mike Greenberg, the network announced at its upfront presentation Thursday.

Greenberg will lead a New York-based morning show beginning Jan. 1, 2018 that will run from 7 am to 10 am and will feature a mix of news, opinion and analysis, according to network officials.

Greenberg currently hosts the long-running Mike & Mike radio sports talk show with Mike Golic, who later this fall will team with ESPN personality Trey Wingo on a new sports talk show. The daily show will air from 6 am to 10 a.m. ET and will initially be simulcast on ESPN2 before moving to its permanent simulcast home on ESPNU.

“Mike Greenberg fronting a television show in the morning gives us a chance to set the conversation for the whole day, and he is uniquely gifted in taking those fans through that conversation," Connor Schell, senior vice president of original content told Multichannel News. “We feel like we’re getting the best of both worlds – we have incredible strength on the radio that we feel can continue with Mike Golic and Trey Wingo, and we get to launch another show on television with Mike Greenberg.”

The network also announced it will launch an afternoon talk series featuring ESPN Radio’s Bomani Jones and ESPN Magazine’s Pablo Torre. The one-hour live program will air from noon to 1 p.m. on ESPN as well as streamed on the ESPN app and WatchESPN across all devices and platforms, said the network 

In addition, ESPN has signed Torre to a multi-year extension that will allow him to make appearances on a variety of shows and platforms including Around The Horn, Pardon The Interruption, and SportsNation. The deal follows a similar multi-year extension Jones signed with ESPN last December, said the network.