Celebrating the voice of sports

The second FrancesaCon was a roaring success for co-organizer and Rockville Centre native Mike Leboff, 27. The convention, which was held at Irving Plaza on Jan. 24, is a celebration of Mike Francesa, the beloved sports radio voice on WFAN. The sold-out event had more than a thousand people attend this year.

Mike Francesa himself even came to the convention this year.

“When he came the roof was blown off the place,” Leboff said. Francesa himself said on his radio show that it was something he would never forget. “It was the most amazing thing I’ve ever experienced at any event I’ve ever been at,” said Francesa. “I’ve never in my life seen the reaction like that ... it was overwhelming, it was almost inconceivable how loud the crowd was. It was amazing.”

The convention raised $5,000 for two charities: The Doctor Theodore Atlas Foundation in Staten Island and the Children’s Network for Hope in New Jersey. A band from Rockville Centre, Jerry and the Newcomers, played before Francesa’s entrance.

Leboff organized FrancesaCon with his friend, Ron Haraka of New Jersey. Haraka is the college roommate of one of Leboff’s friends from Rockville Centre.

“[Francesa has] kind of a cult following,” said Leboff. “A great community of people who listen to him religiously.”

Last year’s FrancesaCon, Leboff said, started as a Mike Francesa-themed bar crawl the day before the Super Bowl. It raised $2,000 for charity. Leboff said that after the first convention, Francesa texted him and said he was interested in coming to the next FrancesaCon. When Leboff and Haraka found out that Francesa was coming, they moved the convention to Irving Plaza.

“The online community of New York sports radio fans is just so massive,” said Leboff. “It just kind of does the work for us.” Leboff said that once one person picked up the news of the convention on social media the word just spread and that it was “low maintenance” to market the convention.

When he’s not organizing conventions around New York sports personalities, Leboff is a writer for the Rockaway Times, which is printed by Richner Communications.