Hot Mic Catches Mike Francesa Arguing With Staff Over Simple Fact And Not Realizing He's On-Air

Mike Francesa is a broadcasting legend… but whether it's prank callers or not realizing that his microphone is hot — despite decades in the business — he has a habit of unintentionally hilarious moments.

He had another one of those moments this week in which he got into a somewhat heated, one-sided discussion with his team.

Francesa was broadcasting live — although, as you'll see, he didn't realize this — when he started discussing the Big East tournament.

The broadcaster thought he heard someone correct him on which day the conference champion would be crowned, with Francesa saying he heard someone say in his ear that the Big East had "been won already."

 "What were you guys talking about? Because I heard it in my headset," Francesa said. I thought you were talking to me. Now, who said that the Big East has been won already?"

The best part of this clip is that you get to fill in the blanks with your imagination. I don't know what happened, but I get the sense that someone made an offhand remark or a joke without realizing their mic was cracked and Francesa heard it.

This sort of thing should be easily diffused, but, remember, this is Mike Francesa we're talking about. 

So, instead of saying, "No, I believe the championship is actually on Saturday," Francesa went on for several minutes trying to get to the bottom of this.

"Okay, one of you guys just said that St. John’s has won the Big East Tournament. They have not won the title yet. You win the title tomorrow night. The championship trophy goes with tomorrow night’s winner. It does not go with the regular season champion. It can’t because if it did, why the hell would you have a tournament? So you’re wrong about that. The title goes to who wins tomorrow," he said.

Then comes the cherry on top of the broadcasting blunder sundae: Francesa realized they were live.

"No, we'll start over again… we broke off the air, didn't we?" he asked. "We're live? This was all on the air as I was yelling at you guys?"

Francesa seemed to be bumming pretty hard that everyone heard him undressing his staff over the simplest fact in talk radio history, and apologized. 

"I apologize for that outburst, okay folks? Alright?" He said. "I didn't realize we were live; I thought we were taping this… so this is gonna go viral now because I yelled at you guys."

Yes, Mike. Yes, it is.