As he walked south on 10th Avenue toward his Times Square hotel, Danny Parkins was juggling.
He had just left the studio from where the first episode of his new FS1 show aired. He needed to watch a recording of the show to review his performance. He needed to speak with a mortgage lender and a real estate agent. And, of immediate importance, he needed a sandwich.
“It is all a whirlwind,” Parkins said, “and it doesn’t really stop.”
This is life now for the former co-host of The Score’s afternoon show who signed off just two weeks ago to join “Breakfast Ball” with former WFAN star Craig Carton and three-time Super Bowl champ Mark Schlereth. It was early afternoon as Parkins navigated Manhattan on Monday. Next Monday, the show will move to its regular slot, 8 to 10 a.m. Eastern.
Parkins has never done a show that early. Throw him another ball to juggle.
Still, Parkins was feeling good, saying he was “super happy” with his debut performance.
“I always judge a show by, if they feel fast, they’re good shows, and if they feel like they drag, they’re bad shows,” he said. “And the two hours flew by, and there were quite a few laughs. If that’s our baseline, it’s a pretty good one.”
It was a good show. Parkins was sharp and sharp-dressed. His days of appearing on camera in shorts and a T-shirt, as he would on The Score’s video stream, are over. On FS1, he’s in a button-down shirt, no tie, top button undone and a jacket.
“Craig doesn’t have any interest in wearing a jacket on TV, and Schlereth doesn’t either,” Parkins said. “I’m going to be the guy that does. I did not say, ‘This is how I want to look on TV.’ They had a vision for that.”
Such is the way on national television. The week before the show, Fox arranged to have Parkins’ measurements taken, and a designer went shopping for him. The next day, he tried on the clothes, and he and the designer picked what they liked. Fox provides everything Parkins wears on the air.
The show’s support staff is equally thorough. Before the show, Parkins, Carton and host Schlereth meet with the producers to formulate set-up questions. The producers don’t want the guys doing the show before the show, so no one gives an opinion on the chosen topics.
“What we do is, OK, the Jets are the favorites [in the AFC East],” Parkins said. “How do we want Mark to tee us up so that it can facilitate the best conversation? So for that one, it was, ‘Do they deserve to be clear-cut favorites?’ ”
After the meeting, they break off to work with researchers and graphic designers for help supporting their arguments. When the guys have graphics developed, they keep them hidden from each other to make for genuine reactions.
“I think I threw to four graphics, and I had five ready to go,” Parkins said of the first show. “I will definitely be the guy who is supporting my arguments with stats. The support staff is incredibly talented, and there’s a lot of them.”
There also are a lot of shows in FS1’s new weekday lineup. “Breakfast Ball” will be the first of five starting Monday. How does Parkins intend to make his stand out?
“Chemistry is what matters,” Parkins said. “It was the strength of the show with [co-host Matt Spiegel and producers Shane Riordan and Chris Tannehill at The Score], and I’m hoping to make it the strength of this show.”
Carton, who left his top-rated radio show last year to focus on television, sees Parkins as a kindred spirit.
“He’s a delusional Chicago sports fan,” Carton said. “And because of my delusion as a New York sports fan, there’s actually some great commonality in the fact that we have sat here as long-suffering fans of our favorite teams without much to show for it.”
Parkins’ wife, Stephanie, and two sons, Owen and Eli, are still living in their north-suburban home. Parkins is looking for a house in the New York suburbs, perhaps in New Jersey, to maintain the way of life the family is used to.
In the meantime, he’ll work to turn a successful radio career into a burgeoning TV career.
“We’re just trying to be entertaining, funny and insightful,” he said. “I think that those are strengths of mine from my radio career. So I’ve just got to figure out a way to make that translate onto TV.”