Stephen A. Smith is not too humble to be candid about how his career began: As a beat reporter for several newspapers, covering high school and college sports, while living off canned tuna and Kool-Aid.
His aspirations were to eventually become a newspaper columnist, which would give him considerable leeway to express his opinion in a fashion that wasn’t acceptable as a hard-news sports journalist.
“When I became a columnist in 2003, I was the 21st African-American, 21st Black man, in this nation’s history, to become a general sports columnist,” Smith said during an interview with Howard Stern in 2019. “It was an incredible accomplishment — which is why, when you’ve got these bloggers out there, talking this sh-t sometimes, I remind folks, excuse me, I’m no blogger. I worked my way up to this point.”
His opinions did not go unnoticed. As a newspaper columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer, he was regularly invited onto local radio and television shows to opine about the state of sports — and, later, elevated his appearances to national radio and television. When the Inquirer demoted him in 2007, he challenged the move — and won, but with a concession that he would not espouse any political views in the paper or in other forms of media.
Over time, those restrictions have loosened to the point where Smith is now seemingly everywhere, talking about everything — on Howard Stern’s show, on ESPN’s “First Take,” chatting with Chris Cuomo and Bill O’Reilly on NewsNation, duking things out with Sean Hannity on Fox News.
That is unlikely to change anytime soon: This week, while the Walt Disney Company was in the middle of laying off dozens of workers at its cable networks division and ABC News, the company forged a new agreement with Smith that will see him continue on at ESPN in his current capacity — and all it will cost them is $20 million over the course of five years.
Smith has more than earned it — the institutional knowledge of the game and the business of sport is not something you can learn from reading a book, it’s something you are taught by working your way at the bottom of the industry, and scraping by every day until you “make it.”
Still, you would think the amount of money ESPN is throwing at Smith to keep him on their morning show “First Take” would give the network a modicum of exclusivity to his talent. It won’t — the contract includes various stipulations and clauses that allow Smith to continue appearing on other networks. He will do just that — later this month, Smith will participate in a public forum with O’Reilly and Cuomo in Florida, having done something similar before the election last year. He will continue to appear regularly on that network, and others, as often as he is invited; when it comes to his new contract there are very few conditions about what he is allowed to say or where he can say it.
That isn’t to suggest ESPN is simply handing over $100 million to Smith simply to keep him on their morning show. He will have to work harder at the network than he already does — ESPN is in the middle of transforming its business, to lean away from its distribution on cable news. Later this year, it will launch a new app that brings the ESPN multiplex of channels beyond the cable — for the first time, anyone with an Internet connection will be allowed to pay to watch ESPN and nothing else, if that is what they prefer. The app will reportedly include features beyond live access to ESPN, including podcasts and user-generated videos. There is no doubt Smith will have to contribute significantly to that effort; how he will contribute remains to be seen, but we probably will not have to wait very long for that answer.
But being smart and working hard is not the entire reason ESPN was willing to pay big money to keep Smith — after all, if merit alone was enough to make a career, many of the people who lost their jobs at ABC News this week would still be employed.
Smith has drawn an audience of people who will tune in to hear what he has to say, and what he’s going to say next. They may not fully agree with his opinion, but he speaks at a high volume and with authority. The fact that Smith is loud, and everywhere, makes him incredibly difficult to ignore. Even the casual fan will come across a Smith rant from time to time, even if they do not go looking for it.
At a time when expressing the wrong opinion at the wrong time can end a career, Smith seems bulletproof, and ESPN needs all the help it can get. Paying $100 million is a worthy investment if it means Smith can help make the network its next $1 billion.
And that is why he got paid. It isn’t just because he’s smart, or opinionated, or loud, or on every radio and TV channel. It is because he is all of those things, in one person, and many of the best elements that make Stephen A. Smith are things that cannot be taught in school. They cannot be learned. They have to be experienced. He is unreplicable. ESPN is lucky to have him.
