Explaining WFAN’s Gregg Giannotti-Brandon Tierney war of words

New York’s newest sports media feud is spicy.

WFAN morning show host Gregg Giannotti unloaded on former midday show host Brandon Tierney on Monday, trashing his ex-colleague as humorless and alleging “people hated working with that guy.” The broadsides came after Tierney took a shot at Giannotti for a prank call he made to Tierney and Sal Licata last year before the duo was shuffled out the door to make room for the returning Craig Carton.

Tierney then fired back later in the day on his YouTube show, accusing Giannotti of not being supportive enough off-air when he was let go. Tierney also said Giannotti was “dead f—king wrong” for questioning his character.

How did this extremely personal brouhaha break out? Here is the background and series of events, as far as we can figure it:

Tierney, who works as a radio analyst for St. John’s, made an on-air mention of having celebratory drinks with fellow fans/staffers last year after the Johnnies beat Omaha in the first round of the 2025 NCAA Tournament. The Johnnies then played poorly in a second-round loss to Arkansas.

Some guy named Dave then called in and blamed the St. John’s loss on the players doing too much partying with Tierney. This infuriated him since he had not partied with the team. Giannotti found out what happened and called in to the midday show as “Frank in Bayside.” He accused Tierney of partying with players, citing “my buddy Dave” as the source of his information. Tierney flipped out and jawed with Frank/Giannotti for a few moments until the call was dropped. Tierney then clarified again that he did not party with the players.

Fast forward to the present. Giannotti copped to the fake phone call last week on-air with St. John’s back in the Big Dance. Tierney then had guest spot on the current midday show with Tiki Barber, Evan Roberts and Shaun Morash last Friday to talk about the Johnnies. This apparently happened after Tierney reached out to WFAN program director Ryan Hurley. 

Barber and Roberts brought up Giannotti admitting to the call. Tierney claimed he had no idea Giannotti was behind the call until recently. Tierney said he did not appreciate the potential connection that he was drinking alcohol with underaged people and he never would have done that to a teammate. He took the high road for the most part — until a parting shot while acknowledging Giannotti’s talent for doing impersonations.

“I wish he would have imitated being a good teammate,” Tierney said. That zinger spurred Giannotti to return fire (and escalate the situation considerably).

OK, we think that’s everything. Some thoughts: 

1. It’s understandable Tierney was irked to learn Giannotti made a fake call to his show. That is pretty lame. Sports talk radio is obviously much more of an entertainment product than a journalistic endeavor these days. But the expectation is that all content that is not explicitly a work is real. Especially with callers. It is another example of WFAN falling short of its responsibility to be responsible. 

2. That said: Giannotti was not trying to trip up Licata and Tierney by asking them if Oklahoma’s Hugh Jasole would be a good mid-round draft pick for the Giants or some other attempt at embarrassing them. He was just trying to get a rise out of Tierney about a pre-existing matter he knew got under his skin. There is a difference. 

3. The underage drinking angle feels like a stretch. It’s not like people were saying Tierney was buying six-packs for high school sophomores. I would venture to guess few, if any, people thought about underage drinking when this happened. Tierney also didn’t bring up underage drinking last year when he was reacting in the moment (at least based on the audio I’ve heard).

4. It seems obvious Tierney’s teammate dig runs a lot deeper than the fake call. He made it pretty clear on Monday that he does not feel like Giannotti was supportive enough when he and Licata were let go by WFAN. This clearly still really upsets him despite claims that he and Giannotti never really had much of a relationship. And it’s understandable that Giannotti took umbrage after he supported Licata and Tierney during the Carl Banks debacle. He’s also had the back of WFANers in many other cases.

5. Giannotti did get much more personal than Tierney. He took a situation that was a 2 and made it an 11. A lot of people are going to view him as the aggressor and a bully. And given how sensitive he tends to be, it would not be surprising if he lashes out again on Tuesday and we go around the circle again.

6. I don’t agree with Giannotti that Tierney should have been blocked from going on WFAN again because he backed up Joe Benigno’s recent critical comments about the station. But he does have a point about whether Tierney should have been brought on. There is a big difference between, say, ex-midday host Marc Malusis still doing some weekend shifts and Tierney being brought on as an expert. A reporter who covers the team like The Post’s Zach Braziller or Newsday’s Roger Rubin would be a better pick anyway.

7. Giannotti’s voice in the fake call is incredible. It’s like 75% Benigno, 20% Mike Francesa and 5% himself.