DOES STEPHEN A. SMITH KNOW THAT “AROUND THE HORN” DOUBLED HIS RATINGS?
I was on the show in its prime days, when we attracted bigger audiences and secured viewership for “Pardon the Interruption,” and since I left the air, ESPN has done nothing but waste away the numbers
Only ESPN would broadcast a three-part program about sports media followed by a graphic of Stephen A. Smith, who is described as “Mr. SAS.” It means he served as the executive producer of a documentary that largely is about him. This project sinks way down there, beside the network’s obsession with gamblers, where ESPN Bet is used to lure deviates while its website explains what’s wrong with Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter.
“Buckle up!” Smith says in a release.
Rather, we’ll spend 90 minutes asking why bosses dumped Jeff Van Gundy when the new NBA broadcast crew is abysmal. Rather, we’ll wonder why Dan Le Batard trashed Smith’s villainous audacity when he spent years making fun of his own father on the air. Rather, let’s ask how many people will buy ESPN’s streaming service in the autumn of 2025, when it already has lost massive numbers of cable subscribers. In fact, let’s blame ESPN for the complete wreckage of sports media, preferring to climb onto bedsprings with its vast mixture of leagues for billions of dollars — a softness picked up by other remaining members of commissioner-approved outlets.
For some reason, Disney has decided to invest its sports future into Smith, whose daily ratings on “First Take” are barely half of what we attracted on ESPN’s “Around The Horn.” The numbers are correct, Shannon Sharpe. Laughing all the way, I watched the show — “Up for Debate: The Evolution of Sports Media” — with a curiosity of how our program would be placed in the “all-time” structure. I would like to say I had a blast in my eight full years and 1,600-plus appearances. I’d like to say I tried to bring realism, known as The Truth, about sports people who don’t deserve even tempers. I appeared most often on the show, which included two hosts, and prepared five days a week while flying in from Miami or Los Angeles or wherever to make starting times in Chicago.
When we were organized by Mark Shapiro, who ran programming and now runs UFC and WWE, the idea was to provide a welcome audience for “Pardon the Interruption.” That show had started the previous year, with Michael Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser. A few years in, each quarter would bring fabulous news — our ratings kept climbing. Not only were people watching ATH and PTI, we’d soar on occasion toward one million daily viewers. Fox Sports stole our producer and our host, Max Kellerman, but we carried on. The platform became Jay Mariotti and Woody Paige. The scoring was ridiculous, and so was Woody. But when the host let us talk, I’d make my points and became, unfortunately, fairly famous while Snoop Dogg hated me.
It was nice to reach prime goals until, one day, a producer said Bristol executives didn’t watch the show. OK. I was dragged ragged by a five-day-a-week column schedule and constant travel and didn’t like hearing John Skipper wasn’t fond of us. Hey, I didn’t plan the proceedings. I didn’t keep scoring. I showed up and rambled about sports, as I do here. And people caught on, a lot more than those who watch “First Take,” which averaged 482,000 viewers in April. The world changed, via consolidation and devices.
Still, we DOUBLED Stephen A. Smith.
When I left the studios, ESPN couldn’t wait to get rid of me. There were hints all along, problems from Jerry Reinsdorf and owners who didn’t like me — and bullshit about a personality who was “great” for the show, as bigwig Erik Rydholm said — and everyone assumed ATH would carry on. It hasn’t. Ratings have dropped dramatically, to 298,000 earlier this month, with a mishmash of panelists who don’t sell the show as much as they just show up. Tim Cowlishaw hasn’t written a good column in 10 years and passes time. Paige? Where’s Woody? The best days are when Mina Kimes appears, but no one chooses to debate each other anymore. Host Tony Reali is the only star when stars should be the panelists. Thus, ratings are low. ESPN2 sometimes becomes an offsite. What’s next, a replacement featuring former athletes?
Anyway, I think ATH was reduced to a handful of seconds on the doc. PTI received a grand celebration, as did Stephen A. Smith. Eight years, 1,600-plus shows.
For what reason? So ESPN could bury it?
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.