Carton Leaving WFAN For Family & FS1
• Craig Carton announced he is stepping away from his afternoon radio show with Evan Roberts on Audacy Sports-Talk WFAN/New York on June 30 in order to focus on his family — and his other fulltime gig, hosting The Carton Show on Fox Sports 1. Carton, 54, made the emotional announcement on Thursday, saying, “Today is a happy day and a very sad day for me, and it’s one of the most difficult days I’ll ever do in radio, because I am leaving WFAN.”
Commenting on his co-host, Carton said, “I love Evan Roberts. It has nothing to do with Evan Roberts. It has nothing to do with anybody here. It has everything to do with me and my personal life, and the opportunity that I have with Fox Sports to do a show on Fox Sports 1.” He continued, “WFAN is everything to me. WFAN is family to me. I am a 30-plus year radio talk show host, and radio is all I’ve ever done well. Radio has been like family to me since starting in Buffalo… and ultimately being fortunate enough to land here with Boomer back in 2007.”
Yes, Carton famously co-hosted the Boomer & Carton morning show with former NFL quarterback Boomer Esiason from 2007 until Sept. 6, 2017, when he was arrested and accused, along with his business partner, of running a Ponzi scheme that defrauded investors out of millions of dollars in bogus concert tickets in order to cover his own gambling debts. On April 5, 2019, Carton was sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison and ordered to pay nearly $5 million in restitution to his victims. He was released in June 2020 after serving less than a year. Carton was also the subject of the 2020 HBO documentary. Wild Card: The Downfall of a Radio Loudmouth. He rejoined WFAN in Nov. 2020 to co-host afternoon drive with Evan Roberts.
Carton continued, “Making a decision not just to walk away from radio, and very specifically, from WFAN, is not an easy decision… I sadly put myself in a bad place a number of years ago, and three years ago today, I was known as nothing more than a number. I woke up three years ago today in federal prison, a place I was for a year based on bad decisions I made. When I was that number, I dreamed about the possibility, among other things, of one day being able to restart my career. It might have seen silly at the time, but that dream helped me survive prison.”
Carton also had high praise for Audacy New York Market President Chris Oliviero, calling him “a saint in my corner.” Carton said, “[Chris] has maintained his support of me as a friend and a brother through all the ups and downs of my radio career. When I got myself in trouble, he came and visited me. He told me if I ever got my life back in order, and figured out why I made the bad decisions I made, he would be there for me. No guarantees of a job, but that he would never stop being my friend. Having a guy like that as your friend, I’m the luckiest guy in the world. Not only is he my friend, but he paved the way for me to come back to WFAN.”
While Carton will no longer be a fulltime fixture on WFAN after June 30, he will maintain a presence via his Saturday morning show, Hello, My Name is Craig, which helps raise awareness of the dangers of gambling addiction.
