Mike Greenberg wore a green tie to SportsCenter once.

That was it. Nothing else. He didn’t say anything about the Jets’ playoff game that night in the early 2000s. Just showed up in a green tie, hoping nobody would notice. Then Robin Roberts needled him about it during one of those chit-chat moments between segments, and Greenberg thought his career was over.

“I had never acknowledged what team I rooted for,” Greenberg said during a recent appearance on The Dan Patrick Show. “I would’ve thought that, that would be totally verboten. That, you know, Norby [Williamson] would call me in and fire me if that came up on the air.”

Nothing terrible happened. But the moment stuck with him because it represented everything he thought you weren’t supposed to do as a broadcaster at ESPN. This was before Mike & Mike became a national phenomenon, before Get Up turned him into the face of Jets misery, before he spent years defending Aaron Rodgers only to ceremonially cover the quarterback’s framed jersey on-air after the disaster ended.

Back then, Greenberg thought admitting you rooted for a team was career suicide.

He’s not alone in that thinking. Kirk Herbstreit still operates that way. The Cincinnati Reds fan believes that openly rooting for teams “hurts your credibility” and singled out Elle Duncan for cheering for Georgia on SportsCenter. Mike Tirico walked away from his Mets fandom decades ago, calling it “wasted time” when ESPN anchors discuss their allegiances rather than delivering news.

Greenberg sees it differently now. He draws a line between what he does on Sunday NFL Countdown or the NFL Draft — events people watch because they’re fans of the sport — and what he does on Get Up, a show built around personalities.

“At this point, I think my sports soul is calloused enough to sort of absorb that depression that is being a Jet fan,” Greenberg told Patrick. “It’s interesting because I host two different shows… In my case, when I host the Sunday morning Countdown show or when I host the NFL Draft, those are shows people are not watching because I’m on them; they’re watching them because they’re fans of the sport. When I was hosting the NBA, they’re watching because they’re fans of the sport. No one but my mother is watching because they want to hear what I have to say.”

That distinction matters to Greenberg. On those league-focused broadcasts, he keeps the Jets talk out of it. He doesn’t treat them any differently than the Packers or the Chiefs. But on Get Up or during his years doing Mike & Mike with Mike Golic, the rules changed.

“On talk shows that are on my own shows, so when we were doing Mike & Mike, and now when I do Get Up, I figure the reason people are watching is because of your personality, it is because of who you are,” he said. “They’re tuning in to hear what you have to say about those things. That’s how I got to this. I didn’t play. I’m not a former athlete. I’m just a fan. I’m just a kid who grew up loving sports in the 1970s, and those are my teams. I’ve never made it any secret.”

Twenty years ago, SportsCenter anchors stayed neutral. Now, personalities lean into their fandom because audiences connect with it. Stephen A. Smith doesn’t hide his Knicks loyalty. Pat McAfee hams it up for West Virginia on College GameDay. Elle Duncan celebrates Georgia openly.

Herbstreit and Tirico represent the old guard, where credibility meant keeping personal rooting interests private. Greenberg landed somewhere in between. He came up in that era but adapted as the industry changed, realizing audiences didn’t abandon him when he showed his Jets colors. If anything, it made him more relatable during a time when the Jets provided endless content, mainly of the painful variety.

“There’s no question that I talk about the Jets differently than I do other bad teams in the sport,” Greenberg added. “It’s just the way it’s gonna be.”

That honesty has led to moments like Greenberg calling the 2024 Jets “one of the truly colossal failures in recent sports memory,” yelling at Mike Tannenbaum about draft picks before apologizing on-air, and admitting he turned his back on religion after betting $1,000 on a Jets Super Bowl win following his father’s death. The team went 4-12.

The debate over on-air fandom isn’t going away. Herbstreit will keep insisting that objectivity matters in the broadcast booth. Tirico will keep arguing he doesn’t care if you’re a Phillies fan or a 49ers fan when you’re delivering news. And Greenberg will keep absorbing the depression that comes with being a Jets fan, because at this point, his sports soul is calloused enough to handle it.