Sal Licata on life after WFAN and watching Mets games with Jerry Seinfeld
Sal Licata, left, with Jerry Seinfeld at a Mets spring training game in 2026. Credit: Sal Licata
Former WFAN host Sal Licata admits he’s “still processing” the end of his popular show with Brandon Tierney as part of the station’s shuffling following the return of Craig Carton.
Licata is still a fixture on SNY’s shows and has started his own YouTube channel and podcast, “The Sal Licata Show.”
What does the future hold for Licata? Maybe even a return to WFAN one day, the 46-year-old Connetquot High School alumnus told Newsday on Thursday in a telephone interview.
“Everybody that I talk to there, I still feel like I have a good relationship with WFAN and everybody there,” Licata said. “I said that I would be surprised if I were not behind the microphone at the FAN again and I still feel that to be the case. I don't know when that's going to be or what exactly that's going to look like, but I would be surprised if I were never back on WFAN at some point in the future.”
That doesn’t mean Licata’s new venture doesn’t have reach. Because of it, he got to watch a Mets spring training game with one of the team’s most famous fans.
“On the podcast,” Licata said, “I was doing a bit complaining about Jerry Seinfeld must not like me because he doesn't follow me. I've never heard from him in all my years at the FAN, and he's had relationships with others, so he must not like me. That night, he started following me on Instagram. And then we started talking about the Mets, and then I was like, ‘Oh, I'll find this out when I go to spring training.’ He said, ‘Oh, I'll be there too that weekend, we should meet up.’ Then I got there and he sent me a message saying we have an extra seat and I went and sat with him and his friends for the day.”
As he spoke, Licata had just finished taping his podcast and was preparing to appear on two SNY shows after the Mets’ season opener. He has been an SNY contributor for 15 years.
“I love doing ‘Baseball Night in New York,’ especially during the Mets season,” he said. “I'll do some stuff on ‘SportsNite,’ but also starting my own YouTube channel and podcast. It's been challenging, but also fun. You can just do whatever you want whenever you want it. There are challenges to it but also it's liberating.
“I think the future of the business is to take things in your own hands and create your own content. Eventually, maybe somebody buys that, but you hope to get sponsorship behind it. I think no matter what I personally do, I'm going to stay at SNY as long as they'll have me. I'm going to continue to do my YouTube channel and podcast and always have that and always own that. And in addition, eventually try to get back on the radio, whether that's back at WFAN or somewhere else.”
Licata admits it still stings to have lost his WFAN show at the end of last year.
“It has been months to process,” he said. “I am still processing. I think that when something like that happens when you give as much as I gave WFAN for 20 years and had one goal in mind and then you start climbing, climbing, climbing, and then you fall like that, I think that it takes even more time to process. I wouldn't say I'm fully over it yet, but I'm starting to feel a little bit better about creating the content on my own, starting to enjoy it a little bit more, and I'm still trying to find myself, my new self after what happened at the FAN.”
Licata declined to wade into the recent feud between Tierney and WFAN’s Gregg Giannotti in which Tierney called Giannotti a “bad teammate” and Giannotti responded by saying “he’s the bad teammate.”
Asked his take, Licata said: “My take is that I got invited to a baseball game by Jerry Seinfeld and sat at a baseball game with Jerry Seinfeld and that story did not get picked up and the radio wars dominate headlines. So maybe I'm doing something wrong.”
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.
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