Times Union

Kuselias leaving ESPN to join Golf Channel

December 13, 2010 at 4:09 pm by Pete Dougherty, Staff writer

Erik Kuselias will be leaving ESPN to become co-host of the Golf Channel’s new live morning show.

Kuselias and Gary Williams of Sirius Radio have been hired to for the show, which will air from 7 to 9 a.m. weekday mornings beginning Jan.3. The show will originate from the Golf Channel’s Orlando, Fla., studios.

Kuselias had been at ESPN since 2003. He created the Emmy Award-winning “Fantasy Football Now” and was the primary host of “College Football Live” and “The Erik Kuselias Show” on ESPN Radio.

Williams was co-host of the early morning show on Sirius’ “Mad Dog Radio.”

A look at Golf Channel’s new morning show

In January, Golf Channel will debut its first live morning show, entitled Morning Drive. The show will originate from Orlando and be hosted by a couple of broadcasting veterans.

Erik Kuselias, most recently of ESPN fame on the radio and TV side, will be joined by Gary Williams of Sirius/XM’s Mad Dog Radio. The show is billed as a program primarily about golf, but will bring in news and business headlines, weather, and other stuff.

Both the hosts and the concept strike me as something that could either pan out really well, or horribly.

Kuselias and Williams have morning experience, albeit almost exclusively on radio. Obviously, this is on television. The studio, though, is small (it used to house Golf Channel UK), and the desk at which both fellas sit has radio-style microphones. Maybe the show will be centered on radio-style banter – playing to the resurgence seen in broadcasting every modestly popular national sports talk show on television these days.

What seems to cause the most consternation is having a two-hour morning show on a network about golf with stuff other than golf in the show. Then again, there is only so much golf action to talk about in the morning. And if it’s hard enough to make a 7am tee time to actually play golf, then there has to be something else to lure audiences to a golf-focused morning talk show.

Format and talent aside, the studio for the show should arouse some conversation, too. When I first saw the studio in a visit to Golf Channel’s Orlando studios last week, I honestly had no idea what the set of a golf morning show would look like.

The set centers around the aforementioned desk with radio mics, but also is decked out to be fun in a golf-themed way. There’s a golf pinball machine. A golf cart shell is hung from the wall with a TV monitor in it. The walls are brick, though a golf ball shelf is in clear view of the camera. It works for me, but you’ll have to see it yourself to judge.

Morning Drive premieres on January 3, 2011, from 7-9am ET.

For more golf news from ProGolfTalk, come back throughout each day, or Like our page on Facebook.

Minka Kelly Named Esquire's Sexiest Woman Alive

In an interview with the magazine, the actress talks about herself, what it's like to be 30, and growing up the daughter of a stripper.

"I'm a very nice girl, but nobody pushes me around," she says. Read More Inside >>>
Growing up: My mom lived a fast life. It was all about what we could do to have fun with nothing. She - for most of my life, she was a dancer. An exotic dancer. She was a stripper. Um, so she would come home at like three, four o'clock in the morning, and sometimes she would have a really great night, and so she would wake me up in the middle of the night and we'd go to Ralphs and go grocery shopping. And that was so much fun. We'd have the whole grocery store to ourselves, and we would have a blast and buy a hundred dollars in groceries. And it was just the best day ever. The best day."

Turning 30: It is a big one and I love it. I think it's the most exciting birthday I think I've ever had. I'm so excited to be a woman. Done with the twenties. I'm confident - confident in my skin, and I'm cool with my flaws and all that stuff. It just feels nice to be at peace with yourself. I think my thirtieth birthday gave me permission to have all that. The twenties were a pain in the ass - figuring it all out. What am I doing? Where do I go?

After the reporter noticed how she thanked everyone at dinner: My boyfriend [Derek Jeter] noticed that about me, too. He's the same way, and he said it was a good way to judge someone's character. It's actually unfortunate, in a way, that you would notice that. It blows my mind that anyone could be unkind to anyone. The guy clearing our plates is a person. I don't care if you're sweeping the floor. I don't care if you're cleaning my toilet.

Erik Kuselias: Did Scandal Send Him to the Golf Channel?

Erik Kuselias is leaving ESPN to join the Golf Channel and there's a lot of speculation that it has to do with some inappropriate behavior behind the scenes at the Worldwide Leader.

Kuselias has been reported as being too forward with other female employees and saying inappropriate things and being warned multiple times for his behavior in the workplace. Deadspin reported that he was married at the time of doing this but isn't anymore because his wife hired someone to look into him and found out that he was having a relationship with a co-worker, allegedly Stephania Bell.

Now Kuselias is going to the Golf Channel, and the move comes at a time when there's a book floating around that will detail all of the behind-the-scenes stuff that goes on at ESPN. I'm sure that won't go over well, and there have been whispers that he wasn't brought back because of his actions.

Either way, who knew things were so juicy at ESPN?