WFAN's Chris McMonigle, a Long Island native, gets his turn on afternoon drive
WFAN afternoon drive co-host Chris McMonigle grew up in Franklin Square. Credit: Corey Sipkin
Chris McMonigle is an overnight success story.
One that started 19 years ago.
McMonigle, the former overnight host at WFAN who grew up in Franklin Square, started his new gig on Monday as co-host with Craig Carton on the station’s prestigious afternoon drive time show.
“The Carton Show” features the controversial Carton, whose third stint with WFAN got the headlines when it was announced last month.
McMonigle’s name isn’t in the title, which the 42-year-old adroitly mentioned during the show’s debut on Monday. But make no mistake — the success of “The Carton Show” will depend as much on “Big Mac” (or, as he’s also known, “C-Mac”) as it does on Carton.
“Great to have you sitting by my side,” Carton said to his new partner on the first show.
For McMonigle, it’s a continuation of a journey that started when he was a WFAN intern in January 2007.
Or maybe it really started many years earlier driving around listening to WFAN in the glory days of “Mike and the Mad Dog.”
“I think the beginnings of this trace back for me with just my desire to argue,” McMonigle said on Wednesday in a telephone interview. “I love to play devil’s advocate. I’d love to just get into a discussion about things and sports are always the most passionate thing in my life. Me and my father — that’s the beginnings of it. Just the passionate sports debates in the car with my dad.”
McMonigle’s father passed away in 2003. Chris is now a father of two boys — 8 and 6 years old — who get to listen to their dad on the radio after school. That’s a little easier to do now that McMonigle is not on the air in the wee hours of the night.
In the last week before the new show debuted, McMonigle’s schedule was all over the place. He did afternoon shows, a final overnight one to say see ya to his devoted insomniac audience, and then slid into the chair next to Carton on Monday.
“It’s going to be a heck of a lot easier to find sleep now,” McMonigle said. “There is something about that overnight shift. I tell people all the time there’s nothing that needs to get taken care of at 3 o’clock in the morning when everyone who lives in normal life is sleeping. But stuff needs to get taken care of at one o’clock in the afternoon — the car needs to go in for service or the kid’s not feeling well at school or they’re coming out to clean out the dryer vents . . . I was pretty much a zombie. But those days, I suppose, are behind me.”
What’s also behind McMonigle is having gone to Carey High School and later Nassau Community College and then doing a 16-week course at the Connecticut School of Broadcasting’s Westbury campus once he decided he wanted to argue sports for a living.
Then it was joining WFAN, working as a board operator and producer on shows with station legends such as Mike Francesa and Steve Somers, and then a 2 1⁄2-year stint with Carton and Evan Roberts. Add that together with fill-in shifts and then a regular weekend show and then overnights. And when Carton needed a partner, WFAN brass called McMonigle’s number.
Carton was previously partnered on WFAN with Boomer Esiason in the morning and Roberts in the afternoon. McMonigle worked behind the glass on the Carton and Roberts show and started to find his voice when he joined in the conversation.
“That’s really where I started to get my character — ‘Big Mac,’” he said, “and I really started to find my voice on air, becoming more of just the guy who could interject every once in a while with a sports opinion, and becoming myself . . . I think I was featured in the show a lot, and I think me and Craig developed a rapport and a relationship. I had really not known him, didn’t really cross paths with them that much. I think there was just an understanding that we had a rapport and we knew each other fairly well, working together two and a half years, and had an idea of what the show would sound like a little bit.”
It sounds so far like a typical Carton show. Carton goes for the laughs — many of them crude ones — and is liable to say anything at any time. McMonigle might have to bring the conversation back to sports, if he can. The two will have plenty of time to hone their chemistry over the weeks and months.
“The back and forth between me and Craig feels very comfortable,” McMonigle said. “I feel really good about the first couple shows.”
It’s an instant success story! (Nineteen years in the making.)
Anthony Rieber covers sports media and business and professional sports (you know, games and trades and things). He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since Jan. 1, 2026.
More sports media
